


Nobody Wins But Most Of Them Live

by Olorisstra



Series: Nobody Wins 'verse [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Anakin is gonna lose his shit at some point, At least one of my Revan was hopped up on the damn things and they didn't come all that cheap either, But it's meant to be mostly happy, Clone feeling protective of their damn fool Jedi, Domino Squad lives because fuck that noise that's why, Fives just wants to avoid being caught in the crosshairs, Happy Endings (sort of) AU, Jedi Corps FTW, Kix won't stroke out only because if he strokes out he can't tell the others about this fuckery, M rated because it's about a galaxy just out of a war, Obi-Wan Kenobi is not to be trusted with his own health and general wellbeing, Possibly at Obi-Wan possibly at the Council, Pretty much what the title says, Rex and Cody are not letting the stims thing go, The stims are an homage to the two KOTOR games, Younglings are therapeutic from the soul, clone feels
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-15
Updated: 2016-05-10
Packaged: 2018-06-02 08:50:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 25,985
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6559960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Olorisstra/pseuds/Olorisstra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nobody wins.</p><p>From a purist Jedi pointo of view they lost as soon as the war started and from a general Jedi point of view they passed acceptable terms for ‘victory’ a long time ago.</p><p>But the war ends and most of them live.</p><p>AU to Year two of the Clone Wars, in which Domino Squad lives, Padme got pregnant much earlier than in canon, Obi-Wan visited Utapau at least once before Episode III and a clanker who wanted off the battlefield sold something he probably shouldn't have sold, or really should have depending on your point of view, to an enterprising journalist and changed the course of history.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [demifishblog](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=demifishblog).



> You can lay this all at the feet of demifishblog on tumblr and her magnificent liveblog of Star Wars The Clone Wars.
> 
> It started on her blog, became a huge post and somehow everyone is loving it, which I am really bowled over with.
> 
> There were requests for me to put this up and so up it goes, for everyone to enjoy.
> 
> You can find me on tumblr as jhaernyl , if you wish to :)

Nobody wins.

From a purist Jedi pointo of view they lost as soon as the war started and from a general Jedi point of view they passed acceptable terms for 'victory' a long time ago.

It all comes down to an enterprising journalist comparing very illegally acquired holos of someone she was told, by a confidential informant who just wanted to retire and spend life as a nurse droid instead of a battlefield droid, to be the 'true mind behind the separatists' and a 'traitor to the republic' with holos of famous politicians, until she hits the right combination of reconstructional software, a Mandalorian one, and on the Palpatine's notorious family nose.

The news break just as Master Mace Windu is leaving the Temple with his fellow Councilors and between the time it takes for the transport they are on to land in the suddendly buzzing hive that is the Senate and for them to make their way to the Supreme Chancellor's Office, the man is no Supreme Chancellor anymore voted down with a motion so swift that it goes down in history as the fastest motion ever voted by.

By the time Darth Sidious calls for Order 66, the Clones know that he's not the Acting Chancellor anymore and that's enough to make the man an invalid source of authority for the calling of the Order.

It flashes through their minds, yes, but they also have traction to fight against it. The voice giving them the Order is not the voice of their supreme commander anymore and what Darth Sidious gets is not 'aknowledged' so much a series of variations on 'You kriffing son of a Hutt, you want me to do what to my General?'

Peace, of course, is not easy coming but the Separatists have lost their major Generals, the Republic has discovered they had been puppets, and the Trade Federation and the Banking Clan are in the crosshair of both sides as soon as Mas Amedda starts talking (and he's singing operas about Palpatine's dealings like a canary, more than simply talking, as soon as the man is deposed, almost, playing up the 'I was scared for my life' angle).

Yoda and a Jedi Stealth Team quietly assemble and slip away to deal with Sidious while the Republic licks it's wounds and Padme Amidala checks herself in a hospital room that she works out of to help her secret husband to calm the hell down before he can have the panic attack to end all panic attacks (because she got pregnant way earlier).

The Clones, it's quickly decided by the Senate, are a Jedi problem. 

They were made for the Jedi, they are the Jedi responsability, that will keep them working for the Republic but take the 'care, clothing and feeding' problem out of the Senator's hands. They can be conflated in the Jedi Corps or repurposed as guards or left with their former Generals, now once again just Masters and Knights, that's up to the Jedi and to whatever liberty they want to allow to the army no one needs now.

The 212th on Utapau (they went there earlier and Obi-Wan did kill Grievous much ahead of schedule) kind of freaks out, in very quiet and deeply horrified ways, as soon as Order 66 comes in, only instead of firing on their general as they were supposed to be, Commander Cody orders his men to lock the whole planet down and locks of all them up in every possible spare brig and prison available to them, just in case the Order comes back in a fashion they are forced to obey.

(It's not an uncommon reaction, though there are some Jedi who do have to either talk their troops down or put them in Force-enforced sleep to keep them from suiciding to avoid being a risk to their Jedi. Not everyone is fast enough, some of them will be scarred by it for life).

Taking the chips out is the first order of business for the Order, even before the Senate actually dumps legal responsability and ownership of the Clones on them.

When it all finally settles down there is not much celebration so much as confusion and uncertainty and 'what will we do now?' coupled with General sticking like glue to their troops and troops sticking like glue to their Generals, though the 212th and the 501th are a mixed bag where half of the combined total of them is with Skywalker guarding his wife and the other half stays at the Temple hovering near Kenobi.

Because Kenobi gets sick.

As soon as everything is de-chipped, everyone is in the clear, Yoda announces the death of Palpatine for his crimes as a Sith, as well as those against the Republic, Kenobi's body kind of shuts down.

Commander Cody is the one who finds him collapsed in his kitchen, with a fever high enough to scare ten years Cody can't afford to waste out of the man and calls the Healers.

Kenobi is checked in at the Temple's Medical Center for chronic exhaustion, signs of battle fatigue and what turns out to be the first, and probably most vicious for decades to come, case of adrenaline poisoning since the time of the Revanchist and the ban of adrenaline stims as illegal. It's bad enough that the healers do suspect him of having somewhat acquired and used adrenaline stims, though the suspicion doesn't go in the official report for the Senate.

His 212th/501th contigent camps out in the Room of a Thousand fountains and starts drawing up guarding / visiting schedules, to make sure his ass stays in there until he's actually fully recovered.

Cody doesn't leave his damn fool Jedi's room and actually let Rex vent at the unconscious tank full of bacta in which Kenobi is stuffed, once his brother gets there from Kamino, nodding along gravely as the blond brother gets the worst of his panic-attack-induced-anger out.

* * *

Rex sat himself down heavily, breath coming a bit short and his heartbeat loud in his he looked with burning eyes at the unconscious shape floating in the bacta tank. It had been stripped down and put into a pair of knee-length, skin-tight shorts that did nothing to hide the fact that even the man's thighs were nothing but muscles, not even healthy fat left behind.

 _You damn fool Jedi._ He thought, fingers clenching into fists.

"The healers think he might have been sneaking adrenaline stims on the side, to keep himself going." Cody said, low and bitter, as he held a mug of caf within Rex's reach. His brother waited for him to unclench his fists, and slide his nails out of his palms, and take the mug. "I've put Echo and Fives on finding out if it's true."

"If it is, I'm going to track down whatever sleemos sold them to him and kill them myself." Rex replied, self-aware enough to hear how his voice had slipped into the low, rough register that he usually never allowed to come out.

"You and me both, vod." Cody agreed, his voice neutral in a way that made every hair on Rex's body want to raise itself out of mammalian self-preservation instinct. 

_Good_ , Rex thought, viciously pleased that, as ever, they stood side by side on the issue of how to deal with sentients who hurt one of their Generals. 

Kenobi didn't need any help in doing things to himself that were bad for the general health, considering that he seemed to get a kick out of it all on it's own. More than the general Jedi and just as General Vos, if the stories about the man were to be believed. 

'Disliking his company'. Ha. Bantha poodoo. Those two had been made from the same genetic strain, no doubt about it.

* * *

Kix was in heaven.

Something Echo had said, about access to Jedi sources, had gave him the idea to ask the Healers if there were any books or reports he could read about adrenaline poisoning. It was probably all going to be stuff from that Revanchist period they had mentioned, but some were better than none. Kix just needed a clearer idea.

After some talking between each other, the Healers had sent for a Togrutan male from the Educational Corps, whatever those were, named Yeman Khret and told him to see to it that Kix got the materials he needed.

And Khret, who had looked non plussed to be ordered around like a shiny on his first mission, had delivered in spades. He had introduced Kix to Madam Jocasta Nu, who was terrifying in the ways Kix liked best, and then had showed him how to check out books and printed him a very simplified version of the library rules. He'd also helped Kix figure out not how the search and advanced search worked, he wasn't a kriffing moron, but how to find and get his texts sent to his padd from ancillary libraries and, most wonderful of all, _medical libraries_.

Hevy had tackled Jesse to the ground before he could actually finish swearing a blood feud against Khret, the asshole, when Kix had shared the wonderful news.

* * *

"You should go help them." Padme suggested, giving a squeeze to his hand. "Nobody knows Obi-Wan and how he thinks like you. I am surrounded by the best healers in Coruscant and they know to call you if anything changes, both good or bad."

Anakin squeezed her hand back, torn. He felt sick dread pool in his stomach, at the idea of leaving her, but he couldn't deny that she had a good point nonetheless. The men had fought for and alongside his Master, but they had never shared an apartment with the man and didn't know how good he was to make things he didn't want noticed disappear.

He also felt guilty, for not realizing just how much the war was weighting Obi-Wan down, how much of him was given up for the sake of being everywhere he was needed as soon as possible as fast as possible.

He'd never given much thought to it. It hadn't been that bad for him and while he had his own war-inspired nightmares to deal with and while he felt the losses of his men too, it seemed that Obi-Wan had been more deeply affected, more consumed by it than Anakin had let himself be.

Of course, Obi-Wan didn't have someone like Padme waiting for him at home, someone he could go to and talk with, share his life with in ways that let him get away from his duties and responsabilities. Obi-Wan had the Council. How terrible was that?

"Ani." Padme called, bringing him out of his thoughts, and he found her looking up at him, face set in that beautiful expression she always had when she was about to kick his butt into action. 

"Obi-Wan needs all the help we can give him now and no one can do that better than you. You will not be able to stop thinking about it, either, and you won't forgive yourself if something happens and you could have prevented it. So go help your Master." She instructed him, her tone firm and taking no prisoners. Gods, but he loved her.

"Yes, dear." He said, jokingly, and leaned down to stealthily steal a kiss from her, relishing the feeling of her hand, when she cupped his cheek as she kissed him back.

* * *

Fives was in hell.

The High Council had assigned one of theirs to him and Echo, because General Kenobi collapsing had scared them badly too, apparently, and they wanted an investigation that was more official than them looking into it for Commander Cody. Which was far more than official enough, as long as Fives was concerned but whatever.

They had assigned them a Jedi Investigator, because it had turned out that there were a lot of kinds of Jedi with a lot of very different jobs.

They had assigned _him_ another asshole who was a knew it all about regulations and loved to jabber about it. 

Kriff and Siths. As if Echo hadn't been enough on his own, especially ever since he'd found that he could borrow at his heart's content from the Jedi Archives, because of that bullshit 'wards of the Order' bill the Senate had passed to wash their hands of Fives and his brothers.

Now he had two of them, talking his ear off about current regs and old regs and war time regs and the difference there in and oh kriff, he was gonna need so much alcohol to bleach it all out of his head.

He grumbled to himself, marching down the corridor that was supposed to lead them from the hangar (where they had left the shuttle they had gone up on, to search Kenobi's quarters on their latest Star Destroyer) to Kenobi's rooms in the Temple (he kinda wondered how well off they were and if they had the same soft mattresses that were making sleeping hell for him).

He also wished for _something_ to happen that would draw Knight Beran P'nall away from them and possibly get him reassigned to someone else at all.

At least, when it was just him and Echo, Fives knew perfectly well how to get his brother to shut up about the damn regs.

* * *

Kix had worked himself up to a pretty woering rage, one that General Kenobi was going to bear the brunt of, if the man had actually been so kriffing stupid as to hop himself up on adrenaline stims.

Kix wasn't actually convinced the General had done it, but so far it was the only explanation that fit, despite the fact that it was a behaviour Kix might have watched for in the files of his brothers, had he known about it beforehand.

(As it stood, everyone was going to get a physical either way, because he knew more than enough of them who might have for his comfort and Force help if he found out some idiots had actually gone through with it).

The more he read about the potential longer term consequences, the more it made him want to go out there and blow up any smuggler willing to sell the things around.

"Excuse me?" A female voice asked, approximately two meters on his left, down the aisle, by the stacks.

Kix looked up.

A human female was standing there, with a little pile of pads (well, little compared to the stacks on his table) in her arms.

She was unarmed, no lightsaber in sight either, and wearing the same uniform Khret had worn, though the symbol stitched on the chest was different from the one he'd worn and the same of some of the sentients he'd seen around in the Temple's Healing Ward. She looked to be in her fifties, with short salt and pepper air and the kind of calm to her that he would have expected by most Generals who weren't Kenobi, Skywalker or Vos.

"Khret told me that you are looking into adrenaline poisoning, because of General Kenobi's case." She said, coming closer now that she had his attention. Her stride was firm, her manner no-nonsense and she didn't ask that, she just apprised him to what she knew of the situation.

"I was wondering," She went on, setting her pile on books on top of one of his stacks, the spines turned towards him. "- if you had considered that he might have accidentally poisoned himself through a combination of substituting meditation for sleeping, psychosomatic presentation of battle fatigue and his natural tendency to put himself in situations where his body would produce massive quantities of adrenaline, which sometimes can be a byproduct of the use of the Force."

Kix blinked.

Well, _that_ actually _did_ sound like something the General might have done.

Huh.

He looked at the books' spines.

They were a motley assortment of Jedi Healer treaties on arguments that ranged from over-extending one's body's limits with the Force to inadvertently abusing Force-enhancements to over-reliance on the same, along with two different books on psychosomatic presentation damage in Jedi and a study on Jedi And Survivor Complex that looked like it hadn't been touched in decades and gave Kix the impression it was treated as nothing worth reading about.

Which was preposterous.

The Kaminoans had seen to it that all brothers be not only mentally capable of handling what was thrown at them but also mentally capable of handling surviving what was thrown at them and what came after, to avoid any break-downs in the troops they were churning out.

He had given for granted that the Jedi did the same.

Kriff.

He looked up, to ask the healer about it, but she was gone.

Kix swore.

(Low, because he wasn't about to encur in Madam Nu's censure).

* * *

Hevy kept an eye on Jesse, just in case he'd try to sneak off again, but the kids were keeping him pretty busy. 

Waxer and Boil were in the creche with them too, though Boil was pretending to be both far more done than he actually was, the big softie, and pissy to have drawn this rotation, the liar. Waxer looked like he was thinking plans for adopting all of the younglings and sneak them off to Ryloth to be a happy little family with their Numa.

It was adorable, though Hevy wasn't gonna admit that much out loud any time soon, more for the good of his own image than because he feared Boil's reaction. That brother was more grumpy than actually aggressive.

The young wookie he had been playing with raised his arms and howled his version of an 'up'. Hevy snorted at him and then leaned down, raising him up high and then settling him on his shoulders, much to the delight of the kid, who couldn't be older than fifteen standard.

He didn't mind this rotation at all.

* * *

Anakin knew what he was about to do wasn't fair to his Master, but as far as he was concerned, he wasn't going to feel all that guilty about it. Especially not after being briefed by Cody on Obi-Wan's chart.

As far as things went, his Master hadn't been fair to himself to begin with.

He was standing in front of the bacta tank that contained Obi-Wan's far too skinny body, Rex and Cody bracketing him at the sides, eyes narrowed as he took in the damage Obi-Wan had done to himself.

 _This is not acceptable, Master._ He thought, grimly, as he closed his eyes and reached through their bond, the one that was laying dormant between them, and poked at Obi-Wan with as much gentleness as he could muster.

Just enough to draw a sliver of Obi-Wan's consciousness up, not enough to actually wake him. It was some of the finest work Anakin had ever done, control wise, but he had a clear objective in mind and that helped him navigate the complexities of being close but not too close.

 _'akin?_ Obi-Wan muzzily thought.

 _You are safe, Master. You should go back to sleep._ Anakin sent, soothing him before he could rouse fully. _I just need to know where the stims are._ He whispered, in the same tone he would have used to ask for where the report forms were or some non-critical but time-sensitive information.

 _The stims?_ Obi-Wan sounded confused, uncertain.

 _Yes. Were are they?_ Anakin asked again, trying to press without shoving, which was much harder than he had thought he would be, because to ask about them was to think about them and to think about them was to think about Obi-Wan taking them and ... and that wasn't a productive line of thinking.

 _But I turned them down._ Obi-Wan said, confused.

Anakin blinked his eyes open, in shock, and swore in Huttese as Obi-Wan slipped back down into unconsciousness with a sleepy _We will talk about this later._ that was near incoherent, as far as the tone was concerned.

* * *

"No." Cutup said, looking down in disapproval to the padawans he had caught trying to sneak out of the apartment they were supposed to share until their Masters were discharged. "I know that you are bored and that your Masters are all in the Healing Wards, but this is _not_ the way to deal with things."

The Mon Calamari looked like hir might be about to just try and find some pond to sink down into. The Zabrak boys were looking at each other as if trying to decide how to best get out of this and, damn, had no one taught them how to front already? This couldn't do.

"Come with me." He ordered them, briskly, and waited until they were hauling ass to look at them over his shoulder and smirk. "You are going to need much better supplies than those, for whatever thing you were thinking of repainting."

When the boys made to cheer he turned on his heels and raised his hands, palms up, shaking them.

"No, no, no! You are gonna give us away! You have to pretend to be contrite and about to be punished!" He hissed, low enough that with any luck the incoming patrol of brothers wouldn't hear him.

The Mon Calamari dropped hir's head and the two Zabrak's boys immediately hunched their shoulders and looked like they were wishing the earth would swallow them.

Well, that was at least something. A base to build on.

These kids were lucky it had been him, who had found them.

* * *

"Yes." Kix did his best not to grind out, breathing in deeply and then exhaling slowly. "Everyone joins the Force. We are clear so far. But _is there counseling after_ , for those who haven't joined it and saw others do it?" He asked, trying to phrase his question in a way that might be understandable to the Rodian padawan he had enlisted as help.

The Rodian inclined his head, pondering the question, and Kix turned to look at Khret, who seemed more bemused than actually worried, as he _ought to have been_. What was wrong with everyone?!

Kix waited, holding on tightly to his temper as the padawan kept thinking about what should have been a _really easy to answer_ question, goddamnsit.

Finally, the Rodian padawan looked up and turned to Khret. "What does he mean, by 'counseling'?" He asked.

Kix just stared.

* * *

"He means if it's mandatory for Jedi to talk to mind healers, after witnessing someone passing into the Force or after a loss." Khret specified, taking pity on padawan Graab Liss and on Chief Medical Officer Kix both. They clearly weren't speaking the same language, as often happened between reasonable people and Jedi.

"Why should we? We are Jedi. We accept it and we move on." Padwan Liss asked, taking a step back immediately after, probably in reaction to the warnings the Force had started shouting in their ears. "So say the Masters." He added, a bit precipitously.

"You should go." Khret cautioned him, gently, and Padawan Liss nodded and turned, walking away at a steady enough pace that it wasn't fleeing but it wasn't quite calmy leaving the field either.

Chief Medical Officer Kix turned to him, eyes glaring daggers, mouth opening for what, Khret was sure, would turn out to be an impressive rant.

He raised a hand to forestall it.

"I am not a Jedi." He specified, since the human might actually not be aware of it yet, given the ignorance he was displaying about the traditions and conventions of the Order.

Chief Medical Officer Kix blinked, looking at him, completely thrown.

Khret allowed him the time to turn that into his head and look at it from various angles. He wasn't going to be the first sentient Khret had had to explain the difference between the Order and the Corps too. He actually had quite a bit of experience in the matter.

He suspected Keran would have been better at it, since Khret was not even the right kind of Educational Corps branch (he was an archivist, not a teacher) and she at least was on the same wavelength as the man, what with both of them being healers.

Keran, however, had barely had the time to drop off the research she had done with the Chief Medical Officer before she had been commed back for an emergency. He had plans to hand her number over to the Chief Medical Officer but, until then, it was still his duty to see to it that the man found the informations he needed and he was certainly going to try.

That it was also fun, and somewhat vindicating, to watch his reactions didn't hurt one bit.

* * *

General Kenobi's digs were pretty much a dump.

A really nice, really well kept, really clean dump, but a dump nonetheless. There was one tiny-ass bedroom that wasn't much bigger than the cabin he'd had on board of their star destroyer, one living room that doubled as kitchen and a tiny fresher without even a bath-tube.

"Are you sure we have the right room?" He asked Knight P'ain'in'my'ass.

The kid didn't even blink, despite the fact that this was the third time Fives had asked that question in the last four minutes.

"Yes." He confirmed. "Master Kenobi used to have a Master/Padawan apartment, but after Master Skywalker was Knighted, he generously left it to Master Skywalker and Padawan Tahno and moved here. This is the standard set of apartments for a Knight."

He checked the padd in his hands. "There had been provisions made to move Master Kenobi to an apartment suitable for a Councilor but the first few weeks he procrastined and afterwards he was never around long enough to sign the paperwork, so it was indefinitely post-poned." He explained.

Corayo's soul, Fives thought, looking around.

There were only a few boxes, all stacked together in an angle. The only clothes in the wardrobe had looked like what Kenobi had regularly wore on the front and there was enough tea to satisfy the thirst of a whole Company but no food to speak of.

This was a huge amount of Bantha's poodoo, it was.

This _couldn't_ be where their General had lived planet-side for as long as the war had been going on.

Mother of Kwot! He couldn't have waited until Commanders Rex and Cody heard about it, if he hadn't been one of the two unlucky bastards who had to deliver the news.

The two of them were going to have kittens by the litter, over this.

* * *

"Let's see if my understanding is _perfectly clear_." Kix said, feeling distantly proud that he wasn't yelling the words but instead calmy, reasonably speaking them through his grinding teeth but still managing not to have them come out like a snarl. And with no Mando'a sprinkled in between.

Khret waited, patiently, looking like he could watch Kix come to terms with just how completely insane the Jedi actually were when it came to their own people. He looked like he considered this as better than the Holonet. Kix could respect an asshole of that caliber.

"Jedi younglings are found either by Jedi on missions or because there is a midichlorian count that is administered by doctors all over the Republic to check in a semi-mandatory fashion and the Order gets notified when someone pings certain levels." He recapped.

"Yes." Khret agreed. "Some planet have it as a tradition, some planet have it as a rule. Depends. There's not an actual Senate bill regulating that."

Kix nodded, taking a note, and then went on: "The children are allowed to stay with their families until they between four to six years old, or their species mental development equivalent."

"Yes, if the family wills it." Khret confirmed. "If they want to send the child immediately, the Order takes them. If they don't want to send the child, the Jedi usually let the family keep the child, though they have the authority to bring them here, but that was ruled a fair few administration ago and only Yoda is still alive to remember it. The fact that they _can_ doesn't mean that they _do_." He shrugged a bit. "I've only ever heard of that rule being applied when there is suspicion or proof of an abusive or dangerous situation for the child's health."

Fair enough and pretty in line with the Jedi he'd met so far. Kix underlined a passage on the padd he'd been taking notes on.

"The children are given a basic training. If they pass the Initiate Trials, they become Initiates and keep on training. If they don't, they are either brought back to their families or reassigned to the Corps." He summed up. "Agricultural, Medical, Educational or Exploration."

"Depends on if the family wants them back or where you've shown to have talent." Khret nodded. "Though most kids who don't make Initiates end up in the Agricultural Corps. The other three are kind of above the level of skill of a kid. If they show skill later on they can always transfer."

"So far so good." Kix muttered. 

Kriff, it was a more compassionate than what the Kaminoans did to defective clones or, worse, those who weren't defective but failed to perform to standards. They cleaned up their act when the Jedi showed up, sending them to maintenance and cleaning crews, and they did let 99 stay on, mostly as an example of what it meant to be a failure, but Kix remembered how it was when he was young.

Now, for the utterly insane part.

(But still not as outright insane as ’ _What does he mean by counseling_?’ WHAT COULD HE EVER MEAN? HUH? DROIDBAIT COULD HAVE ANSWERED HIM, THAT WAS HOW SIMPLE THINGS WERE.)

* * *

"You have the wrong place." Commander Cody said, in the kind of flat tone that meant that they had to have the wrong place or consequences were going to be had.

Fives wished he could say it had all been a prank. He might have gotten murdered for it, but at least it would have been a clean death by glare.

"We checked, sir." Echo answered, leaping forward in the fray because Echo was ARC in his soul to levels that even Five didn't completely managed to touch, what with actually having a somewhat working sense of self-preservation and all. "Five times on the paperwork and then we found a couple of Jedi who know the General and asked them and they confirmed that this is his allotted apartment.

The last time Fives had heard that kind of silence, Rex had caught a group of shinies playing at 'most badass fictional Kenobi fact'.

Even Echo slipped closer to Fives than regulation demanded.

It was that kind of silence.

"I got the paperwork signed as Obi-Wan's prox-- huh. You already packed everything up?" General Skywalker asked from the entrance, looking around with an impressed opinion.

"This was how we found it, General Skywalker, sir." Echo replied, before Fives could elbow him and make him keep his damn mouth shut.

Fives had the chance to get a generous earful of General Skywalker's vast and varied knowledge of Huttese curses, in the next good three minutes. He committed as many as he could to memory. From the way Echo's eyes looked happily glazed, he figured that whatever he missed, his brother would share.

"Agreed." Was all that Commander Cody had to say to _that_.

* * *

Hardcase wasn't sure what was going on with most of his superior officers, but he was pretty sure he didn't care either. General Skywalker was good, Senator Amidala was good, General Kenobi was not good but he was also in bacta so he was going to be good.

As far as it concerned him, things were on track and he could let himself get distracted by something very different.

"There is _more_ of this?" He asked Rea'Vil.

They were sitting next to him on the bleachers as they watched younglings train with lightsabers set to training mode. It had set him on the edge, in a really bad way, to see the younglings surrounded by flying clankers who fired off little zaps of light that looked far too much like blaster fire for his comfort.

The Knight had approached him before his finger could start sliding towards the trigger and had reassigned Chopper, who shouldn't have been there at all and wouldn't have been if their Commanders had known what 'training room duty' was going to mean.

After clearing up how he was supposed to address the Knight (she / her pronouns, but he hadn't been sure initially because hir was pretty decidedly male, physically, but had also taken pains to hide male apple of his throat, wore decidedly feminine-looking eye-markings and wore low heeled sensible boots that would held well in the field while also showing off the legs), Knight Rea'Vil had struck up a neutral conversation about weapons (she knew her blasters about as well as Hardcase, which was pretty impressive for a Jedi).

From there they had moved on to talk about sounds and how some of them were just programmed into them by now, to trigger certain reactions.

She had talked about losing friends on Geonosis and how she both regretted and was glad she hadn't been planet-side, because her Ataru, a particular style of wielding the lightsaber she had explained, would have probably gotten her killed. Hardcase felt he could understand the feeling and shared about his first campaign with her.

She had admitted to having been with the 22nd on the Lemiah, and that had been when he had realized that her left sleeve had been pinned up at the height of her shoulder and that both of her eyes, surronded as they were by healed scarring, were bionic replacements.

"I'm no Skywalker, nor do I have that much seniority, and I -- well. I'm pretty young, so I have time, and I didn't have any big command. There weren't any of my guys left and nobody was in a hurry to assign me another command." She had shrugged and leaned back on the bleachers.

"I ended up pretty high on the replacement for the eyes, because those were a priority, but I'm somewhere in the middle of the requisition list for bionic limbs. The troopers get priorities because they are needed in the field, more experienced Jedi take the precedence because they are more useful to the Order." She hadn't seemed bothered by it, but it had bothered him and not a little. 

"I'll probably get scheduled in in four or five months." She had explained and then had shrugged again, like it didn't matter to her one way or another. "The war is done with and anyway, I can't access the Force with my bio reps. I think maybe I'll switch from Peacekeeper to some other Path."

Which didn't make much sense to Hardcase, who didn't know what she meant by that. It still had made something inside his chest go tight, both for her and for all the brothers they had lost on that damn planet. The brothers who would have wanted for her to be better taken care of, he was sure of it.

She was too skinny, he had decided, and had been about to tell her as much when she had offered him what had looked like one of the fancy ear comms.

"What's that for?" He'd asked.

"They are about to step it up." She had nodded with her chin to the younglings. "The sound is gonna increase. I have some Outer Rim stuff on my audio padd. If you want, we can share."

Hardcase had hesitated, not sure what 'Outer Rim stuff' actually meant, aside from the obvious meaning of the Rim of provenience. After a moment he'd decided that anything was going to be better than having to watch natural aging Jedi younglings come under heavier fire, real or fake that it was. It might just sting them when it hit, but every sound that came out of them left Hardcase seriously dizzy with the need to destroy every clanker in sight.

He had slipped the ear comm in, watched her fiddle with her audio padd and then sound had filled his ear and mind, fast and hard and rhythmic like nothing else he'd ever heard. It was fast paced, whoever it was that was speaking along with the rhythm sounded female, angry and not sorry about either. It was in Rodian, so it had taken him a few moments to start catch what they were yelling about.

Then he had turned to Rea'Vil with raised eyebrows.

She hadn't been looking at him, her bionics pointed at the children, and even when she had felt his eyes on her she'd just smirked and gave him a side-look, as if challenging to say anything about the fact that she was listening to what was basically Sep music about Coruscanti corruption.

The next piece had been deeply different, a lot of instruments coming together in something far more catchy, no singing but just a fast paced cadence that had made him tap his foot. He had liked it better, felt more good to his ears than the previous yelling, more smooth and like something he could have listened at again and again.

Which had led him to the question. 

"There is _more_ of this?" He asked Rea'Vil.

She laughed, low and deep and amused and nodded. "Of more types I can remember off my memory. My guys used to love putting it on during attacks, especially Nip and Bite." Her eyes were soft and sad, resigned in a way that was way more peaceful than Hardcase felt like, watching her.

"You're gonna have to make me listen to the stuff they liked and chose what's approrpiate. I don't want you bringing stuff in our barracks that would gave our Commanders conniptions." He informed her, brisk and businesslike.

She just blinked at him.

"If you think you're getting out to showing me more of this Outer Rim stuff, you are all out of luck." He informed her and then reached out and adjusted her coat some. It wouldn't do, for his Jedi to be less than perfectly presentable.

And he was gonna get some proper, nutritios food in her, even if he had to go to Kix and ask for dietary suggestions. She needed to put some meat on her bones.


	2. Chapter 2

“I can’t believe this is where Master Obi-Wan lives.” Snips says, looking around with a disbelieving expression on her face. “There must be some kind of mistake.”

Anakin wishes he could have the same faith in his Master than his padawan has, but the moment he was told he _knew_ it was the truth, knew it deep in his soul. He could feel the faint trace of his Master’s presence in the apartment, settled in enough for him to have been here quite a few times for prolonged periods of time, the teas stacked in the kitchen cabinets were unmistakably Obi-Wan’s brew and the mugs on the counter where ones he was intimately familiar with.

“I didn’t notice it was this … empty, when I found him.” Cody said, his voice flat and guilt radiating from him like waves. He had been the one, Anakin remembered now, who had found Obi-Wan’s collapsed body and called in the healers, when he’d come by to drop the schedules for the new shifts.

Anakin hadn’t noticed for almost two years, so what did that make him, aside from an absolutely awful padawan? He had been so wrapped in Padme, always so eager to see her and spend time together, that he had neglected his Master. He hadn’t come visit him, hadn’t come by to share some tea. He had relied on the man, trusted his Master to be there for him but he hadn’t been there for Obi-Wan. Not the way he should have been.

He had spent time with –

He breathed in, sharply, and closed his eyes for a moment, battling with the deep, cold feel of betrayal and the blazing fury that followed it, pushing them down and covering them in shields to avoid broadcasting them.

He had chosen to spend time with a _Sith_ rather than with his own Master, to listen to someone who had probably been leading towards the Dark Side all along, who had twisted him with words until he had started thinking of that monster as someone more trustworthy than his own Master, than his br- than Obi-Wan.

 _I owe you so many apologies, Master._ He thought, pressing his chin against his chest, and pushing his guilt down too, trying to center himself rather than listening to it. There was so much that he needed to do, to make it up and to ensure that something like this wouldn’t happen again. He couldn’t afford to wallow.

“How is your research coming Senator Amidala?” He asked the holo he had set on the kitchen table. 

Padme wasn’t shown in her entirety, but only from the waist up, a choice she had made to minimize any risk of any of colleagues finding out about her condition before the public announcement she was planning on could be made. She looked perfect, as always, and Anakin couldn’t help but relax, drinking in the sight of her. Her frown was adorable, though it bode no good news.

“I think Knight Kenobi has been planet-side on Coruscant for a combined number of fifteen days since the war began and even then, only ever when his presence was needed for briefings, debriefings or emergencies that required his personal presence.” She said, her eyebrows knitting closer as she looked at her pad. “This can’t be right.”

“I though the first year wasn’t that bad. We didn’t have that many battles, did we Skyguy?” Asohka asked, turning to look at him. “I know I came in only mid-way through the year, but you couldn’t have been that busy before then.”

Anakin thought back on it, crossing his arms in front of his chest as he thought it over. He couldn’t remember that many battles, but he hadn’t been there at the start of the war, right after Geonosis, because he had been tasked with escorting Padmé home to Naboo and had been put on medical leave right after, which he’d chosen to spend there, quoting their state of art medical facilities on the forms he had needed for temporary assignment there.

“I am not sure.” He said, looking up. “I was on medical leave, Snips.” And too busy basking in Padme and being away from the Council’s disapproval to think about keeping up with what his master was doing or the preparations for the war, aside from what he had learned off the Holonet or when Obi-Wan had called him to check on him. 

He couldn’t remember much of what his Master had said. Actually, he couldn’t remember them talking about Obi-Wan and how he was doing at all. They had talked about him and his recovery and he had been invented tales about the parts of Naboo he had seen, covering up for the marriage he was watching Padmé organize. His Master had asked after her too and they had joked around and –

Yes, he realized. He was drawing a blank about Obi-Wan’s activities, aside from the fact that he had gone to Kamino with the other Councilors.

He turned to Cody. “That was when you and the 212th were assigned to him wasn’t it? During the Council’s visit to Kamino.”

“Yes sir.” Cody nodded. “Master Yoda had already been there, and picked some troops to bring to Geonosis with him, but the whole High Council came back, for the official handing over of the remaining troops, along with some … representatives of the Senate.”

Anakin felt the temperature in the room plummet, on the last four words, and he didn’t need any more indicators to know who Cody meant. 

_Of course_. 

There was no way _he_ would have wasted the chance to be there up and front, gloating over the start of a war _he_ had engineered himself. His hands flexed, the mechanical one wrapping around his arm tight enough that he felt pain radiates from where the fingers were pressing down into his skin. 

For a moment, he pictured wrapping his fingers around _his_ throat and just _squeeze_. Then he stowed that anger away too, with the rest of it, and promised himself to meditate on it later, like Obi-Wan had encouraged him to do, time and time again.

Maybe, when Obi-Wan was awake, they could meditate together. He thought his Master would like that.

"The General was very busy, from the beginning. As the first one of the Jedi to come in contact with the Kaminoans in the last ten years, as far as we were told then, he had to be the one doing all the diplomatic work between the factions." Cody explained, his voice clipped as his eyes slipped from empty kitchen to empty wall to a balcony devoid of the plants that Obi-Wan had left with Anakin and Asohka.

Anakin had thought plants were something Obi-Wan liked to do, when he was free, but he couldn't see any sign of one, neither live or dead, here.

"Then the war started picking up speed and we got busy, especially in those few first months." Cody added, grimly.

"I was on medical leave." Anakin told Snips before she could ask, flexing the fingers of his replacement arm and letting go of his arm.

"Well, according to the hours he logged in and the positions, he was always either with the 212th or dispatched to see about this or that invaded planet, desperate situation, dire attack, almost as if there were no other Jedi that could be trusted to do it, aside from his fellows High Generals." Padmé reported, looking cross at the padds she was no doubt handling. Her frustation seemed to be building.

"This is ridicolous." She finally snapped. "I can't find a record of leave for Master Kenobi."

Anakin frowned, trying to recall the last time ... but no. No, he couldn't recall Obi-Wan taking any proper leave. There was always some Council meeting, something that had be seen about, Ventress had been spotted, Grievous was on the move ...

"That can't be!" Asohka gasped, walking to the table and peering at Padmé's holo. "He must have taken some leave, right Skyguy?"

He found himself at a loss of words as he looked at her confused face and tried to get enough of his voice to say that yes, Obi-Wan certainly had. But he wasn't sure. He didn't know if he could say that and swore it was the truth, like he would have not even two days ago.

He looked at Cody, and saw that the Commander had a frown of pissed off puzzlement on his face that Anakin was sure was reflected on his.

"Anakin?" Padme asked, at the same time as Asohka pressed with a "Skyguy?"

"I." Anakin shrugged, helplessly, and forced his throat to work. "I don't know. I don't think so?" He asked, wincing at his own words and chancing a look at Cody, who looked fit to murder someone.

Stars above, how could they have missed this?

* * *

Sharis stared at the trooper.

He didn't know the trooper's name, nor his serial number either. The trooper's presence in the Force was all wrong too. Too playful, too friendly, too at ease with his brothers. Not enough roughness and hard edges, not enough burning need to prove oneself, to show his worth to the world. It was all wrong.

He still couldn't help himself, because he knew that tattoo and the placement was _almost_ perfect, just a few inches out of alignement. If he squinted it was easy to imagine, easy to believe. So easy, so very easy.

Ripper had always hated easy. He wasn't here, though, was he? They had chosen the hard way, both Ripper and his Master, despite all of Sharis' uncertainties and attempts to suggest a different course. They had paid for it. 

Most of the 44th had paid for it.

The trooper was looking around, waiting for someone, searching for the someone he was waiting for. His eyes got to Sharis and he ducked his head, like he always did when attention was fostered on him, insecure of his place and not wanting to be caught staring. It was a careful duck, the one he had perfect as an Initiate still, low enough to hide his face but not with enough of a dip not to see the reaction of the trooper.

The non-reaction.

He didn't see Sharis.

Ripper always had.

They, the 44th, had always seen Sharis, no matter where he was or how much he tried to avoid their gazes. They had been his North Stars in the Force, when his Master wasn't available and they had always found time for him.

It felt like being gutted by Grievous all over again, that one single stab after his only failed attempt to attack him, that had burned through his stomach and had felt like death, before his master Force throwed him to Ripper and shouted at them to get Sharis out. 

It felt like the ash and fire from the burning forest they retreated through, the ones he carried the taste of still, on his healed tongue, from where he had gulped them in as he tried to gulp down air. 

It felt like being the ash he had seen flit in the wind, dirtying Recon's bucket. Plasma and Nerves and Range's too. Mud's had been too cacked with grime, as usual. Crumbled and broken away in a thousand little pieces.

Ripper had taken his off and put it on Sharis' head when a blaster shot had come close enough to singe his hair and cut off his padawan braid. Ripper had stopped to get that too. He had still been holding it, when.

When.

Sharis looked down at his plate and swallowed tears and grief and tried to let them go, to let them slide off him and join the Force.

He really, really tried.

He looked down at his food, when he failed, and at the padd he had brought with himself. Most of his plate was empty, though he couldn't remember eating from it, and the padd was still open on the message Nerves and Mud had sent him, telling him all about the stuff they were finding out about the work the Agricorps had started on some of the former Sep planets.

He closed it down and turned the padd face down.

"Blast it." Someone grit out at his left.

Sharis blinked when a trooper lowered himself, to look him in the eyes. He had a vibe to him, that made Sharis think of ER and his still on-going 'bitching' , as Nerves and Mud called it, about Sharis' need to eat more and sleep with two blankets and wear the warm robes, because the Temple might be temp-controlled but it was still winter.

He thought it might be another CMO trooper.

"Were you anywhere near a battlefield, in the last two years?" The trooper asked, looking Sharis up and down, his scowl turning even darker.

"I was on Tigertha? Before we had to evacuate and give it to the Seps." He offered, trying hard not to stutter and to avoid dropping his eyes.

"Tigertha? Wasn't that one of the first planets the Head Clanker went after?" The trooper asked, suspicion in his tone.

"Yes?" Sharis agreed. "I - we lost it to him. My Master and the 44th and, well. I didn't do much, to be honest. I tried to stall for ti--"

" _You_ tried to stall for time? _You_? What the _kriff_ were your troopers doing?" The doc ground out, looking like he might just rip someone's spine out of their backs and sew it back in, to do it again.

Sharis shrinked in on himself. He'd known he had made a mess of thing and he was sorry, he truly was. He had thought everyone had heard about him, about his horrible mistake.

"I am padawan Sharis?" He offered, swallowing with some difficulty, tears prickling at the corners of his eyes, as he dropped his gaze, unable to bear the disapproval etched on the doc's features. "I got lost and I came across Grievous and."

He started trembling and he clenched his fists, breathing deeply. He was a Jedi, he could do this. "And I tried to stall him and it cost my Master and Commander Ripper and many good troopers their lives and I am sorry, I am. I know how much all of them were worth. I am sorry that I am here and. And."

"Mother of Kwot!" The man swore and he sounded _so much_ like Rage that Sharis couldn't help it.

He burst into tears.

* * *

Kix grabbed the boy, a baby he couldn't be older than fourteen years standard what thad _they_ been thinking putting padawans this young on the ground in potential Sep space?, and hauled him into his arms, hoping he wasn't making a mistake.

The boy wrapped himself around him like an octopus, his body feeling far too thin under the bulky robes he was wearing when Kix curled his arms in a better position around him and hauled himself and the kid up.

Most of the people in their vicinity had turned to them and those who hadn't were about to and if they didn't stop looking at him like he'd been the one who had done something wrong, Kix was going to _shoot_ someone.

"Jedi do not get counseling." He snapped at the closest group of brothers, finding some catharsis in the way their faces went slack-jawed with shock. "Oh yeah. They are expected to 'get over it' and move on."

He pressed his cheek to the boy's corkscrew hair and rubbed his hand along his back in a soothing way. Jesse, Hevy and Hardcase were already making their way to him and he could see Wolffe rise from his seat two tables away, eyes narrowed as the Commander tried to parse out what was going on.

"Jedi." Kix repeated, louder, aiming the words at Wolffe. "Do _not_ get counseling!"

Then he turned on his heel, without waiting to see the resulting explosion, and marched right out of the mess hall, bringing the shaking, sobbing youngling with him and murmuring to him quietly in Mando'a, giving him the same reassurances he had learned to give to his brothers, when nightmares shook them awake at night.

He was _definitely_ going to shoot someone, over this.

* * *

Rex sat in the perfectly well lit room and watched his damn fool Jedi breathe in the mask they had put on his face.

He had let Cody take care of checking the unbelievable report Fives and Echo had given them, because he hadn't trusted himself not to grab something and shatter it against a wall, if he found himself standing in the kind of room the two of them had described.

It was maddening to think of the General being left in such conditions, when he had been one of those who had insisted the most for the clones to have proper beds, instead of bed-tubes, and living arrangements that were actually worth living into. 

He had looked after them but who, exactly, had been looking after him off a battlefield while he was busy running back and for to whatever planets the Senate decided to see fit to send him to?

No one, it seemed, not even him.

It made his blood boil.

Had the General not been busy floating, unconscious, in a bacta tank, Rex might have found his temper snapping and himself shaking Kenobi until he understood that he couldn't do this to himself, he couldn't do this to Rex and Cody, to the 212th and the 501st. 

He had to take care of his own stupid ass.

Well, it didn't matter anymore.

 _They_ were going to take good care of him now. It was their new mission, their new duty, and Rex was sure General Skywalker wasn't going to begrudge him this choice.

If the look on the General's face when he had left the room had been anything to go by, he was probably going to assign Rex to guard Kenobi personally, with no asking needed on Rex part.

It was for the best.

Rex was going exactly nowhere.

* * *

Rea'Vil hadn't been surprised when a group of clones had come marching into the barracks Hardcase had led her too, before he went off to get lunch for himself once he'd cleared that she'd already eaten. They were _their_ barracks. and all clones had that kind of gait, bred into them by their training.

Nutball had told her so, once, two sheets in the wind.

She had been surprised, however, and immediately worried when she had taken in the sight of Sharis wrapped all around the pissiest clone she had ever seen. Surprised enough to actually get up and meet them half-way, calling Sharis name as she went.

He turned his head, sniffling and looking up at her, and then his lip had wobbled and he had held an arm out, with a tiny "Rea'Vil." that had broke her heart a bit.

She had looked at the clone and he had nodded, eyes taking in her pinned sleeve immediately. He had helped her get a good grip on Sharis and she had supplied the missing limb with the Force. It was slowly getting easier to supplant her missing limb with her telekinesis.

"Come here." She murmured, now, wrapping her arm tight around Sharis and letting him latch onto her, pressing his face into her shoulder and hanging on for dear life. He was trembling and between his face and the shine on the trooper's armor, she could guess that he'd been crying and not a little. 

Distractedly, she wondered about where they had found him, since Sharis hadn't been going out all that much, since the clones had taken permanent residence at the Temple.

She kissed Sharis' hair and brought him with her as she headed back to the large couch she had been sitting on. The troopers let her, the pissy one dumping what looked like a satchel-ful of padds on the table in the middle of the common room of their barracks and the other three checking the perimeter.

She almost winced, when she got a good look at the trooper that had hovered behind the pissy one. Oh Force, but that was an unfortunate tattoo for Sharis to see. That explained while he had crawled out of his quarters and, she guessed, followed the troopers around until they had noticed him. He probably wouldn't have been able to resist.

"I'm gonna send you to sleep, if that's okay with you?" She asked Sharis. All three unknown troopers, as well as Hardcase, looked like they wanted answers and soon. It was for the best, she knew, for Sharis to be asleep while she doled them out.

"Thank you Ree." Sharis whispered, snuggling closer to her and smushing his face against her shoulder, hiding there from everyone and everything else. "I trust you."

She kissed his hair again and then rested her hand on Sharis' forehead. He was exhausted enough, from all the crying and emotional upheaval, that it took her just the lightest of pushes and a soft command of "Sleep and don't dream." for him to fall under the compulsion.

"This is the Knight I was telling you about." Hardcase told his brothers, not the pissy one but other two, giving a nod in her direction.

"Knight Rea'Vil, former General of the 22nd." He introduced her. "These are my brothers, Hevy." The one who felt the most settled and solid, like a rock you could be sure to count on in hard times. "Jesse." Unfortunate tattoo and a feeling of freshness and energy but also calm determination beneath everything else and a deep love, that had latched onto the third one. "The 501st CMO, Kix." Hardcase introduced him.

Rea'Vil nodded to each of them in turn. "It's a honor to meet members of General Skywalker's 501st." She said, feeling more than a bit amazed to even be in the same room as men who had been on Christopsis and all of the major campaigns of the war.

"Oh for kriff -" CMO Kix snapped, through his teeth, and then forced his scowl to lessen. 

He was all but positively screaming into the Force, his mind abuzz with something about 'counseling' going on and on in loop and then vague flashes of other things he was upset about but not as upset as he felt about the counseling issue. Someone more skilled than her in picking up on other people's thoughts could have heard them clearer, but her skills had never lied much in that direction.

"Excuse my bluntness but how old are you?" He asked her, clearly making an effort to speak clearly and, she thought, not to scream.

"Twenty-two standard." She replied, raising an eyebrow at him, perplexed by his question. "I was Knighted three years ago, given my command two years ago." She added, because she could feel he'd want to know those too, instinctively. "I was on the medi-base near Naboo until I was deemed enough to transfer back to the Temple."

She curled herself a bit around Sharis, unable to help it. She knew that the troopers were no danger to them, though they might have been once. The news about Order 66 had 'gifted' her nightmares upon nightmares of what her troops might have done to her if the order had came down, tainting even her dreams with the shade of the Dark.

She didn't hate much, but what she had was all reserved for Count Dooku and his Master, who had brought about the war and the death of Rappel and all the others.

"I met Sharis there. He was one of the few survivors of Tigertha. He and three clones from the unit that had been assigned to his Master, two troopers and the CMO." She explained, her voice lowering as she leaned back, so that Sharis could rest on her chest without needing to be held up by her arm.

Having freed it, she raised it, slipping her fingers through the boy's corkscrew curls, gently. "He never told me much and I didn't press, but the clones informed me that he'd found Grievous first and that the Head Clanker had run him through with a lightsaber, before his Master saved him." She said, softly, and felt the temperature room turn scalding cold as the clone's tempers flared. "Almost gutted him like a fish, is what they called it."

She hadn't meant to cause it, not consciously at least, but didn't flinch when their emotions battered at her shields. Instead, she relished in the feeling of clones getting upset over the Jedi, the way Rappel and Commander Reaper and all the others had for her, whenever they thought it was the case. It was sort of painful, not a pleasurable sensation at all, but she drank it in and a part of her, the part that could never forget the feel of Rappel's arms wrapped tight around her, curled in it warmly.

"Did either of you get any counseling?" CMO Kix asked, managing to sound not too vicious, with an impressive amount of effort.

She would have blinked, if she hadn't been ready for it, but the word had battered at her enough, from his mind, for her to be prepared for the question.

"Sharis is being followed by a Mind Healer, because of his young age. His new Master, when they find him one, is supposed to take over from the acceptance ceremony forward." She explained, letting her hand slid lower, sliding it gently up and down Sharis' back.

"I am a Knight. I don't have a need of a Mind Healer." She explained, hoping her words would sound as reassuring to them as they sounded to her. "I have been slowly coming to terms with the loss of my men and my limbs." She half-lied. It was _mostly_ true but she was nowhere near close to ready to accept Rappel's absence.

From the disbelieving, horrified looks she received, and the incandescently and grimly satisfied one, she doubted she had managed to be even a quarter as soothing as she had meant to be.

Distantly, as the room exploded into noise, she hoped the High Council wasn't going to take issue with her, over this.

* * *

"It's a simple question, sir." Wolffe growled. "Did you or did you not receive Mind Healers counseling after our emprisonment and torture at the hands of the Separatists?"

Plo looked at him, feeling quie puzzled.

"Why would I. We managed well." He replied, easily, looking back down at the padds that he had received as his share of Kenobi's workload. 

It had been initially meant to be handled by Kit Fisto, as Kenobi's designated proxy to his seat, but the Nautolan Master had logged a complaint about the sheer mass of responsabilities not half day in. 

Plo, initially somewhat sceptical as to the accuracy of Master Fisto's complaint, had now discovered that the other Councilor hadn't been joking about the list of duties that Kenobi had half taken on himself and half been assigned too, both by them and by the Senate, operating as Sidious' multi-armed puppet.

He suspected Kenobi had had to pull many a long night, in the days spent getting to and coming from the various locations he had been dispatched too, to keep up with the sheer number of things that had been thrown in his direction.

He looked up again when Wolffe produced a subvocal sound of rage that wasn't much unlike a mammalian growl, though one that was being shaped into the kind of Mando'a curses Plo's men didn't usually indulge into, not where he could hear them.

"I will book you an appointment." Wolffe informed him.

Plo looked back at his Commander in disbelief.

"And you will go, General Koon." Wolffe added, sounding very much like he had a mind to frog march Plo there personally if it came down to that.

Plo narrowed his eyes.

"What exactly has been going on, while I was busy sorting through Kenobi's arcane system of filing, to make you decide so?" He asked.

"Jedi don't get counseling." Wolffe growled.

* * *

Waxer snuggled down a bit more comfortably and smiled at Boil's quiet bitching about brats and not getting attached to him, dammitt, he wasn't sure they were going to stay and they already had one kid who had called dibs on her Nerra.

He was pretty sure Boil thought him asleep, or he wouldn't have mentioned Numa that way, and that was perfectly okay with him. It was one of the things that warmed him the most, to hear his lover speak of their daughter that way, possessive and proud and so damn soft.

Kel'Rin wrapped himself more comfortably around Waxer's stomach and both Nailia and Eeke Nat curled too, sprawling more openly in the added space that had just freed itself.

Boil muttered something about not moving so damn much when he was trying to sleep and Waxer caught the moment and let himself sprawl too, unbalancing thing just enough to let him end up half on Boil and half off, a smile spreading on his lips at the quiet bitching that followed.

"I know you are awake you ... bantha." Boil groused, catching himself at the last moment and putting an arm around Waxer's chest, sliding it under Nailia and and between her and Kel'Rin, his hand coming to rest next to Waxer's, their fingers brushing together.

Waxer pretended not to hear him and let his smile spread, falling asleep to the sound of Boil's voice and with Numa's smiling face clear in his mind, her weight and her little arms easy to imagine, in the puppy pile they and the kids had formed in their improvised blanket fort on the floor, for the afternoon nap.

He dreamed of both of them, of the house they were going to build and of how happy they were going to be.

Boil kept watch.

* * *

Padme frowned as she reviewed the service status of High General Kenobi.

She had gone back all the way to his childhood, because nothing much of what she read was making sense to her.

His teachers had found him talented, if arrogant and impatient because of how quickly he learned, well versed in the use and repair or machinery and with a talent as a slicer. That had tapered off after Grand Master Yoda had taken an interest in him, leading to new reports of a more humble and reserved demeanor.

"Yet, for all this praise, no one stepped up to take him as an apprentice." She murmured, eyes narrowing at the reports she saw of 'antagonism' between him and another child called Bruck Chun, antagonism that had led to more than a fight and a note in Obi-Wan's schedule marking him as unfit for further training that had been later crossed out.

She opened another window, tapped in a request for more informations on the accident and then opened a third one, sending out a request for Bruck Chun's service records too before she went back to overseeing the data she had been sent when she'd asked for Kenobi's service status.

The next logged in document was the decision of the Council of Re-Assignements to send Initiate Kenobi to the AgriCorps facility on the mining colony of Bandomeer the day after the previous entry. There was no explanation of why a decision that had been crossed out had been re-proposed the next day.

She didn't have the clearance to access Jedi mission reports, but she could, and did send, a request in through the Senate channels for any non-classified material on the Bandomeer dispute. Whatever had happened there, something had to have gone down, because not even a week later, Agricorp Member Kenobi had been re-classified as Padawan Kenobi, just in time to fall within the required age, at the request of Master Qui-Gon Jinn.

Padme frowned and opened a fourth tab, sending a third request to the Jedi Temple, this time for a guideline on the rules surrounding padawan apprenticeship.

There were more classified missions, which made her frown because as far as she had seen most diplomatic missions Jedi embarked into didn't require that level of clearance to access the reports, but she went around those too, making notes as she went and sending out more requests through the diplomatic channels.

Some situation on Phindar and Gala, dealing with corrupt nobility, and then Master Jinn and his then thirteen padawan had been sent off into a war zone, to deal with the Melida/Daan conflict. She remembered hearing about it, something about children being involved, but she had been a young child at the time and more focused on learning how to one day be qualified enough to be considered for Queen so she hadn't followed it closely.

Another request typed out, Padme scrolled lower and then stopped, finger hovering over the data-pad button as she re-read the Status Update that Master Jinn had himself submitted upon his return to Coruscant with Knight Tahl and without his apprentice.

"He _left_?" She whispered, images flitting through her mind of the padawan she had traveled with during the Naboo crisis and the young warrior who had brought his Master's body out of the depths of her palace and of the Jedi she had come to know, so loyal and firm in his faith in the Force and in the Order.

She couldn't fathom anything that might push him to even go against the Order, much less leave it, no matter what problem he found himself having with their actions, not that Obi-Wan had ever seemed all that willing to go against the Council.

Or was it true?

She had never really seen him with them and she and Anakin hadn't spent all that time talking about his Master, aside from a handful of times. She wasn't sure where she had been able to form the impression that he was a stalwart member of the Council, to be relied on to toe the lines the Order had given him. She couldn't pin-point when that opinion had formed either.

Her frown deepened and she sent _another_ request out, for informations on the Melida/Daan conflict and Obi-Wan Kenobi's involvement in the matter, within and without the Jedi Order.

Something felt really wrong, about the whole situation.

* * *

"But you did talk to someone about what happened?" Jesse asked, sounding hopeful. Kix remembered those times, long hours ago, when he had still known hope too.

"I did my report to the High Council, yes, and I briefed Master Fisto and the Healers." Rea'Vil answered, looking like that padawan in the library had, all unaware innocence as to why she might have possibly wanted to, or be made to, talk about the war experience she'd been through.

"This is absurd." Hevy said, from where he, Hardcase and Kix were standing, in a perfect representation of various stages of 'done with this shit' and, in Hardcase's case, 'potentially apopletic with rage'. It seemed his brother had adopted himself a baby Jedi and was now experiencing the same level of 'this cannot fucking stand' that Kix had operated on since he had first opened that poorly written book on (how the) Jedi (failed in the) handling of survivor complexes.

"Absurd? This is a steaming pile of bantha shit." Hardcase swore. "How the kriff can they expect the Jedi to successfully go back in the field again and again if they don't get any counseling?"

For all that none of them liked to _talk_ about it all that much, all clones had been taught to share their feelings and work through them with the support of one another. In the optic of keeping themselves in working condition, yes, but who the fuck cared why the Kaminoans had taught them, as long as they _had_ been taught?

They had been encouraged to develop coping mechanisms and to watch out for each other, in case someone didn't feel up to come forward with his problems. To rely on the brothers around them and do not shy away from looking for contact or support. When a squad worked, in the field, it was because they had each other's back. _That_ was the important thing that all of them had to learn.

It had been what had turned Domino Squad, a notorious failure, in one of the best units of the 501st. Echo and Fives bond was deep and personal, Cutup was a seamless and fundamental part of his team and Hevy was the one who corraled them and looked after them all.

"We just do." Rea'Vil replied, with a little shrug of her shoulders. "Those who can't either change their path or retire from active duty and join the Corps."

"By which she means the Medical, Educational, Exploration and Agricultural Corps, that are considered to be subsets of the Order proper, composed by all those who couldn't hack it as Jedi or didn't had a Master chose them by the age of thirteen." Kix reported, bitter and still seething, seeing the confused expressions on his brothers' faces.

There was a moment of silence.

"What do you mean, if a Master doesn't choose them by thirteen?" Hevy asked, voice going low in a way that made Kix deeply happy.

"Initiates are only eligible to become padawans while they are under thirteen years of age. You get to your thirteenth birthday unchosen, the Council of Re-Assignements sends you to whatever Corp you fit best." Rea'Vil explained, frowning up at them, her hand stilling on the sleeping Sharis' back.

 _Gutted by Grievous_.

Kix still was having problems thinking about it without a haze of fury taking over his sight, was sure he'd never _not_ have problems thinking about it without a haze of fury taking over his mind.

"Because you fail your tests, right?" Jesse asked, less hopefully and more frowning. Ah, he was finally catching on.

"No, there aren't any real tests after you pass the Initiate Trials." Rea'Vil replayed, with another little shrug. "You study, you practice and you wait for the potential Masters to come to the annual tournament or to visit the training grounds. Usually Initiates hear about it ahead of time, so they can prepare themselves to impress the potential Masters."

"But what if you are good, really good, and you end up unlucky enough that nobody takes you before you become thirteen years old?" Hevy asked, through slightly clenched teeth.

"You go to the Corps and find your niche there." She replied. "As I said. You wash out. Sometimes, some people are lucky enough to get a Master at the last minute. General Kenobi did."

Kix and his brothers blinked at her.

"All the Initiates learn the story. That he had already being sent to be a ploughman on Bandomeer, after some problems with him and another Initiate, when Master Jinn accepted him as his padawan, a week or two before his birthday." She explained, with another one of her shrugs.

They were starting to get on Kix's nerves. Some things shouldn't be shrugged off as inconsequential. That was how problems started and then bred themselves into issues.

"What the _fuck_." Hevy said, voice completely toneless.

* * *

Brinia stripped off her gloves and threw them in the incinerator bin, pushing it closed and turning it on. She rested her hands, while it hummed along as it merrily destroyed both the gloves and the blood they had been soaked into, at the small of her back and pushed her shoulders back, with a groan of pleasure when she felt her bones pop.

It had been a long afternoon, but they were finally done with the victims from the four hover-cars crash. According to Me'Elan, it had been caused by a group of fleeing bounty hunters but Brinia didn't care much either way. She was just happy that her patients had all been carted off to be in the intensive care unit and that she was now free to head to the Corps' mess hall and get some chow.

She had her evening outlined. First food, then Issississth call either befor or during a nice, long, scalding shower, and pour herself into bed, with some sweet Corellian jazz from her music holo to lull her to sleep. She was going to think about how to best refuse that chief administrator spot proposal the next morning, when he wasn't quite as tired.

She didn't make it ten steps out of the turbo lift she had snuck a ride into, before a group of clones ambushed her, all of them wearing 501st blue.

"Excuse me ma'am." The one with the Captain pauldron said. No jaig eyes on his helmet, so this wasn't the infamous Rex but one of the other captains from the 501. "Are you Brinia Keran of the Medical Corps?"

Brinia felt her brows furrow as she looked from helmet to helmet. "I am." She replied, squaring her shoulders and hoping this wasn't going to be some bullshit reprimand for butting in on Kenobi's care. She had just proposed her theory to a fellow doctor, blast it all.

"CMO Kix forwarded your theory to Captain Rex." The Captain informed her. "He and Commander Cody agree that you should be temporarily re-assigned to General Kenobi's care."

He offered her a padd, that contained the order in question, signed by the two Commanders and confirmed in a scrawl that she supposed was Skywalker's signature, though it wasn't that clear to decipher.

"They would like for you to debrief them personally about how your theory applies to General Kenobi as soon as possible, ma'am." The captain added, when she finished checking the credentials and offered them back to him.

"Blast it." She murmured and then nodded, back straight and head held high. "I'll lead the way." She informed them and stepped foward, not waiting for an answer as she made not for the usual corridor but for the shortcut that went through the training salle for staff work. She was in no mood to take the panoramic road.

The Jedi Healers were going to _freak_ and it was all gonna turn into a bitchy Jedi vs Corps mess, she knew it, but she had known it might have turned out similarly when she had brought her theory to CMO Kix instead of resubmitting it a second time to Healer Nal Tiran for his consideration.

Maybe, just maybe, the Commanders were actually going to listen to her when she told them that, instead of dismissing her concerns like Healer Taan had, when she had insisted on the Miraluka signing off on mandatory therapy for injured Jedi.

In the end, all it had gotten her had been a 'promotion', that was actually a benching, to the Coruscant Central MedCenter as soon as the news that the war was over had come in, a couple of months ago. Taan, the blasted Miraluka fool, had gotten her re-assigned before the day was over and long before any peace treaty was signed, getting rid of her as fast as possible.

But this wasn't about her or Nal Tiran or Taan. It wasn't about anyone or anything but General Kenobi the patient, whom she believed to be in need of a specific set of treatments for his current status and a visit or ten to a Mind Healer, to begin the years of therapy he should have started on years ago.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter kind of kicked my ass but it's here and it's out now and I can focus on Obi-Wan singing and other kinds of stuff.
> 
> Thank you very much for your patience, sorry if it's not as long as the precedents!

Padme frowned at the screen of her padd, as the droid nurse stepped back out of her room, Tup holding the door for her and closing it once she was out.

She had decided to take a break from her research when she had realized that just working through Obi-Wan's service record was more frustration than actually helpful. To work around that, she had mailed a copy of it to both the temple and three different offices in the Senate, with a request to send her the reports they had on record for each of the accidents on the list.

Once that was done she had relaxed in bed, let the massage droid take care of her feet and ankles, and slept a bit, until the mandatory evening check-up. 

She had felt calmer and clearer, as well as well rested, with still an hour before dinner was brought to her. She had had every intention to put that time at good use. Anakin was coming back to see her, as soon as he was done talking with the Medical Corps doctor Kix had referred to him, and she was going to have some results for him.

Then she clicked on the first of the transcripts the Temple had sent back at her, in lieu of the reports she had expected to receive.

She had seen the mission reports Obi-Wan had filed in the last two years, his various precis on the situation at hand as it proceeded, the simple yet very detailed accounts of the status of their troops, his requests for more materials and the arguments he had made for each requisition form he had passed along.

Which -- Padmè blinked, then reached out for the other padd she had been taken notes own and entered a hastily scribbled note to check on the preposterous amounts of aminidstrative work General Kenobi had been doing during the war -- it was quite a lot.

She was very familiar with the man's writing style, to the point where she could spot a Kenobi-written document just from skimming the first few lines. It always felt as if she could hear his voice in her head, when it was one of his.

The _transcripts_ she was looking at, she refused to dignify them with the word reports, were a _joke_. 

It seemed almost as if the Council had trusted Jinn to know what he was doing and report to Yoda privately, in a way that was somewhat much more informal than the tall, polite man she remembered for the Naboo blockade and the days that had followed.

There was little to nothing in Obi-Wan's hand and whatever was there simply corroborated what his Master had already said, without giving away anything of him personally. To look at those reports, it would have seemed as if Padawan Kenobi had no personality of his own, aside from a clear deference of his Master and the Council. 

It was a travesty.

She had tried to get recordings from the High Council's room, but she had been informed that for the Bandomeer and Phindar mission there were none, aside from the brief the Council had given Master Jinn before the start of the mission and well before Obi-Wan became his padawan. 

The transcripts from the talk between Master Jinn and Grand Master Yoda were all they had relative to the Bandomeer mission and the Phindar affair had not been Senate-requested or a mission from the order so much as an unscheduled, impromptu mission that had followed the crash of their craft into the planet. 

A crash they had some records of but that sounded suspiciously convenient for Phindar, if not for Master Jinn and Padawan Kenobi, given that the name listed for the pilot of the ship sounded distinctly Phindarian too and that Phindia had been in suffering under the yoke of a criminal group known as the Syndicate, at the time.

There was a brief transcript transmission between Grand Master Yoda and Master Jinn but it was a bare-bones summary that left far too much unsaid and shrouded what was actually being said in half-phrases and turns of words. It had been Yoda who had asked for Master Jinn and Padawan Kenobi to lengthen their stay for a week, to help out with the reconstruction of a bare-bones government, one strong enough to hold until the first elections could be held.

She tapped a finger on the table, staring darkly at the screen, and then slid the cursor back up, checking the list of sentient beings that had been actively part of the two missions. After a moment's thought, she opened her message program and started typing out a message to AgriCorps member Si Tremba, Director of the Bandomeer project, from Padme Amidala, private citizen.

She was sure both he and co-governors Paxxi and Guerra, to whom she wrote her second message, would be happy to share what they knew about the Bandomeer mining accident and the liberation of Phindia with a friend of Master Obi-Wan Kenobi.

Thankfully, there was more information available about the Gala mission, as it had been officially requested through the Senate and truly by the last Queen of Gala, unlike in the Bandomeer situation where it had turned out that the request for help to the Supreme Chancellor had been faked.

A part of her always ached, at the thought of a Queen having to face the end of centuries of monarchy in favor of elections, but the idealist and reformer in her felt nothing but respect for Queen Veda and her decision to break from tradition and grant her population the elections they both deserved and ached for.

She read about representatives Deca Brun and Wila Prammi, as well as the reports of the preliminary observers about Prince Beju and the local situation, and came away from those reports with the impression that the request for a Jedi presence as neutral observers was greatly justified by how much of a powder keg the situation was.

Yet, once again, the reports that Master Jinn had given were lacking, bare bones with nothing on them to add to the simple facts with just the simplest descriptions of the events that had led the conclusion of events. 

They were vague and obfuscating, in a way that made her think that Master Jinn had wanted no one to look into the details of the mission. She wondered who and helped and why that person would have needed the protection and silence of the Jedi, what they might have done to deserve it.

She wanted to know more about the details but all the Senate reports actually turned out to be briefs that summed the situation up with phrases like 'the Jedi uncovered a conspiracy between Minister Giba and Candidate Deca Brun, whose campaign had been tied to Offworld Mining Corporation'. Which were perfectly acceptable to the Senate, who cared really little about Gala, as long as they remained part of the Republic and kept their trade at the same levels, but wasn't acceptable to her, right in this moment.

Besides, why had no one looked into the Offworld Mining Corportaion tie? It was the same corporation that had caused so many problems on Bandomeer and, from what could be gleamed from the reports from that planet, one of their representatives had been implicated in terrorist attacks against not only the rival mining company but the whole planet of Bandomeer! 

It was unconscionable to her, to not intervene in that kind of situation and yet, at the time, nothing had happened. There had been no real investigation, no digging through the facts, no checking of this Xanatos of Telos IV background and credentials, not even a seize mandate for him to be interrogated! 

It was _unacceptable_ conduct by the Senate!

Padme scowled darkly at her unhelpful screen and opened her message set-up again. This time, the letter she started typing was much more formal and courteous, as well as addressed to former Prince Beju Tallah.

She was starting to feel like this was only going to be the third in a really long list of letters and that just added kindling to her mounting irritation. 

It was baffling, how different Master Jinn's reports, if they could be called that and she wasn't sure she agreed, were from the ones Obi-Wan had penned in the last couple of years. Distractedly, as she careful vowed enough platitudes in her letter to please a former royal without actually referring to them as royalty anymore, she wondered where and when he had learned to write his. It certainly wasn't knowledge he had acquired from his Master, that much was clear.

* * *

Medic Keran of the Medical Corps was both older and more imposing than Anakin had expected her to be.

Her presence in the Force hummed loud enough that he would have thought her a disguised Master if he'd passed her in a hallway. There was, also, a sense of sternness to her that put him in mind of Mace Windu and a very strong sense of "cross me at your own risk" seemed to irradiate from her into the Force, the warning a calm statement instead of an active threat.

He felt Rex, on his left side, shift his posture, adjusting it to a more official version of 'at rest' and Ahsoka, on his right, shifting her weight a bit too.

A look at Cody told Anakin that Obi-Wan's Commander had adopted a similar position, though much stiffer than the one Rex was into.

"Before we begin." Medic Keran said, before any of them could talk, in a low and somewhat masculine voice that contrasted with the way her uniform curved to follow the lines of her body. "I wish to have it noted that I didn't request this meeting and that I did not forward my research to any of you, not even Padawan Tano."

Anakin frowned, confused, and looked at Snips, who looked back at him with, offering an uncertain shrug as an answer to his silent question.

"Your notation is acknowledged." Cody confirmed in the dry On Duty tone of his that had fooled Anakin into thinking of the Commander as dull as mud for the best part of the first year of the war.

"The CMO of the 501st heard about your theory and brought it to our attention." Rex added, sounding heaps calmer than he felt in Anakin's senses, which were screaming at him to stay well out of whatever path his Commander decided to set himself on. "We believe to be a more sound theory than stim addiction."

Medic Keran nodded, not looking surprised at all by their conclusion.

"Master Kenobi never needed stims of any kind to push himself forward." She agreed, neutrally enough. "Have you asked your soldiers to fetch me to explain it?"

"We did." Anakin admitted. "But not just that. We also want you to be Master Kenobi's healer, in concert with CMO Kix." He explained, when she looked at him with a sceptical expression, feeling like a padawan again and half his actual age to boot.

She snorted and then chuckled, looking at them like they had just performed some comical feat. "That's not gonna happen." She replied, simply, matter of fact. Anakin furrowed his brows, temper flaring at the thought of the woman refusing her help to Obi-Wan.

"Why not?" Rex asked, just as Anakin was about to take a step forward. He stopped and returned to his original stance, folding his arms in front of his chest and glaring at the medic, feeling anger bubbling up again at her refusal to cooperate. What the kriff was wrong with her?

"For starters, I am a medic and not a healer." She replied, as if there was an important different there. Anakin's stopped glaring to furrow his brows, feeling uncertain and confused. A sensation he, as always, disliked, viscerally.

"I am part of the Medical Corps, which means that I was not trained in the arts of Jedi Healing and all I figured out and developed was done in my own time and without a Master to guarantee for my progress. While that is not a problem to me, it _will_ be a problem for the Jedi Healers who are in charge of Master Kenobi as a patient."

Anakin furrowed his brows further and then looked at Snips, feeling Cody and Rex turn to him for answers he didn't have. It was a thing that was becoming increasingly too normal, for him not to know what was going on, and he resented the feeling almost as much as he felt the weight of his mistakes and ignorance.

"Does this mean anything to you?" He asked.

His knowledge about the Corps was very limited. He knew that they were made up of Initiates that had washed out of the program and had failed to gain a Master, he knew the differences between them and he had an idea of what kind of work they did, but otherwise he couldn't remember anything that might prevent a Medic from the Corps to take over a Jedi Healer patient.

Snips hesitated, looking down for a moment and then up at Medic Keran who rolled her eyes and motioned for her to speak, heading for one of the chairs they had set up in the room.

"Whatever it is you want to say, I have already heard it all and long before you were even born." She told Snips, her grumpiness thawing just a little bit as she sat herself down and repeated the 'go on' gesture.

"She's a wash out, Master." Snips offered, with a shrug and a nervous look at Medic Keran. "What she can offer to us, any Jedi Healer, even a padawan, could do better and faster. No self-respecting Jedi Healer would let any kind of Medic from the Corps near their patients, unless it was for assistance. It's their main job, here in the healing wards."

"And this," Medic Keran interjected, leaning back in her chair and looking at them with a wry, bitter smile "-- is where I make you aware that while I may not have been trained into the Jedi Healing arts by another expert in the matter, I didn't end up in the Corps because I was unsuited to be a padawan, but because I went unchosen past the age of thirteen, due to a lack of sufficient Masters willing to take apprentices."

She crossed her arms in front of her chest. "I didn't let that stop me and I studied until I qualified for transfer from the AgriCorps to the Medical Corps, in two years. Once there I became a first a nurse, in three years, than a general medic, in ten, and specialized in emergency surgery, in five more. By the age of thirty-three I was officially an emergency surgeon in the Central Med-Center and I started studying Force Healing independently."

Anakin felt his eyebrows rise at the same time as Snips made a little, shocked sound. 

"I became First Medic of the Coruscant Central Med-Center Emergency Ward at the age of thirty-eight and I remained First Medic for twenty-four years." She reported, tilting her chin up, eyes blazing with pride and deep seated sense of her worth. "At the start of the war I was detached for the first year to Kamino, to work with the new troops CMOs, and then General Shaak Tii had me moved to the front lines of the war for the last year, as one of the medics who did field triage with our clone troops immediately after the battles you all oh so bravely fought."

"Head Healer Nal Tiran," She informed them, with a perfectly professional tone and full on sneering in her aura ", who I am sure is the one who is currently in charge of General Kenobi, was the Master of the Knight I found myself operating under the orders of, Healer Taan." Her jaw tightened and, when she spoke again, her words came out laced with dark bitterness. 

"Healer Taan is the one who saw it fit to have me re-assigned to Coruscant the same day the war ended and he could be free of me, because my skills and my thirty years of experience on him didn't do a thing to lend support to my opinions, as they all were the inferior skills and inferior experience cobbled together by a wash out of the padawan program in a lesser facility."

 _Cody_ swore, in Mando'a.

* * *

General Sethek checked the inside of the bio-hazard liquids and gasses containment dome with her binoculars. They had taken residence on a roof a bit far off from where the dome had been erected.

The rest of Tiny Company was a couple of roofs closer and had their tanks deployed. Shorty could hear the cheering from where they were, as another section of that rat ass Sith bastard of the previous Chancellor's palace fell down.

"Another volley of heavy ordnance, if you please, Commander." The General ordered, voice calm and demeanour implacable, as if she wasn't in need of immediate cure. Her disregard for her own injuries was the most maddening thing to her.

Shorty patiently waited, as Commander Icy nodded and reported the order with a broad, meanly happy smile.

They watched as the rubble that had once been a sumptuous palace exploded into dust and tiny pieces, Tiny through the magnifiers of his helmet and the General through her binoculars.

"Good work." She praised, when the dust settled. "Wait five, to let it collapse more, and then target the holes that are opening on the lower levels."

She seemed satisfied, finally, as the Commander confirmed her orders with his usual glee, and motioned Shorty forward with a sharp movement of her head. 

He stepped closer, pulling out the portable hoverboard he had unironically been forced to start carrying around to tend to her inevitable injuries. It was work of a moment to flick it on and mount on it, and then he was rising up to cut the charred and tattered white cotton of her uniform off, exposing the tempered suit she wore underneath to keep her body from over heating.

It had been damaged by some sort of sharp blade and by claws too. On the areas that had been exposed, he could see burned and blistered skin from the fire Senior Researcher Yowlan and Lorekeeper Eent had started inside the palace around the same time Peacekeeper Kalla succumbed to one of the building's traps.

He regretted once more their General's firm order to stay put outside and wait for her call, when she'd first gone in with her team, as he drew one of the colder-and-larger-than-standard bacta patches that all of their unit had as a standard additions to their kits and carefully applied it to the blistered skin.

"I've been informed that there was a tear in Master Kalla's full mask rebreather and that it lead to her inhaling a fear-inducing hallucinogen." He reported. "They are attempting to flush it out of her system. Knight Kohlan Di will survive and retain all of her limbs."

"Good." General Sethek nodded, as she watched a couple of columns collapse and go crashing down in some of the sublevels that had attempted to kill her. Shorty kept the scene in the corner of his eye, as he worked to cover all the affected areas on her right arm and back with the patches.

She had been slightly woozy when she had come crashing out of the front entrance, carrying the other Jedi under her arms and almost having to roll to a halt, because of the fire that had caught on her outer robe.

Tiny Company had moved in immediately, putting her off and relieving her of her cargo, to cart them off to the Central Med-Center, which was closer than the Temple itself and connected to it anyway.

Their General had let him to wrap her into the lower-temp blanket, designed for beings who needed lower temperatures like her and needed to stop her body from going into shock because of the excessive heat, and then had ordered the containment dome raised, set to contain liquids and gasses but to let metals through, while coughing into the ox mask he had fitted her with.

She had, however and with sad predictability, refused to go to the Med Center herself until she made sure nothing remained of the original structure.

He had only acquiesced because she was following all of his other instructions and because his brothers were restless and in need to deal some punishment to the building, in the name of their General. 

To leave would have just lead to trouble and far too much bitching than he was willing to put up with and it was ... unadvisable to leave them there without the General's influence to keep them all, Commander Icy first of all, in line.

Both for the property damage levels that would have been dealt out and because of Tiny Company's tendency to deface whatever thing or building they felt had personally offended them or struck a blow too close to home.

And that blasted palace fell under both categories.

If it was up to him, Shorty reflected as he secured a patch over his General's back, they would spray-paint their insignias in white and grey all over the wreck of the foundations, as soon as they got finished razing them to the ground.

However, he didn't think their General will let them. This was Coruscant, not an Outer Rim planet where they could paint their symbols over wrecks no one was going to go care about. It might have been a bad idea, to do so, and their General was always very careful about not letting go ahead with bad ideas.

She allowed them to get away with a lot that was not strictly reg or that other units wouldn't be allowed to do, but in exchange for that freedom, they accepted to stop when she said so and to refrain from compounding property damage the way they liked best.

Listening to her never failed to save their asses.

She was great like that, their General.

* * *

Nerves had a moment vertigo, when he saw the brother's face in the holo, and felt as if he'd been punched in the stomach. 

It took him a moment to realize that the brother's tattoo was positioned slightly more over the face than Commander Ripper's had been, and only when that happened he managed to drag a breath in.

"Shab." He murmured, feeling a wave of dizziness pass over him, and then straightened, snapping his spine back straight when he noticed the patterns on the brother's armor. The holo washed out the colors, but the 501st marking were not hard to identify. "CT-6-744 of the 44th here." He identified himself.

"CT-5597 Jesse of the 501st." The other identified himself. "I am calling from the Coruscant Temple on behalf --"

He didn't make it to the end of his phrase, because Sharis wriggled between the brother and the projector, popping up in sight and saving Nerves from an early heart attack. 

"I'm fine Nerves!" He said, anxiously, peering towards the projector. "Please, take deep breaths."

Nerves obeyed his Jedi, taking his helmet off. He breathed deeply in and then slowly out, to show him that he was doing what had been asked of him. "Are you sure you're fine sir?" He asked, looking at the image of his Jedi and longing to reach out and draw him into a long and tight hug. "That doesn't look like your winter cloak."

What he really wanted to know was how Sharis felt and was. If seeing a brother with that specific tattoo had rattled him and how bad. Recommend to him to talk to his Mind Healer about it and to get himself something sweet to keep by the pillow if he woke up with night cravings again.

What he really wanted was to be there, with Sharis, and to be allowed to take care of his Jedi instead of being stuck in the Outer Rim trying to keep up with that batshit crazy Jedi General Quinlan Vos and a 44th that even after a year and a half felt alien, when it was only him and Mud and ER left of the original 44th.

"Well." Sharis muttered and Nerves only refrained from facepalming because Jesse of the 501st brothers was still standing in the holo, a bit to the side to allow Sharis more space to move.

"I won't tell ER, but winter season is almost started, sir." He said, making his voice as gentle as possible and letting as much love as he thought was professional shine through in his tone. "Please, do try to remember the heavy coat." He suggested.

"I will!" Sharis promised, raising his head and nodding fervently, his corkscrew curls bouncing up and down with the movement. He still hadn't resumed using the cornrows style with long ends he had preferred while he was General Tahnt's padawan, but at least the one lone padawan braid was still in its position.

"Thank you, sir." Nerves smiled, feeling something ease in his heart a bit, at the sight of his Jedi's determined little face.

* * *

Rea'Vil had been the one who had suggested letting the kid call the surviving brothers of the original 44th, when he woke up, and Hardcase could see it had been a good idea, because that was more animation than the kid had showed since he'd first seen him, ducking his head as if trying to hide in the mess hall and staring at Jesse when he thought they weren't paying attention.

"What's with Jesse and them?" He asked Rea'Vil quietly, not wanting neither the kid nor the brother on the holo to hear him.

"Commander Ripper of the 44th had the same exact tattoo, only a few inches slightly more on the side of the head." Rea'Vil murmured back, with a sigh.

Well, shit.

Hardcase had no idea how he would have reacted to see someone go by wearing Jesse's mark, even if slightly skewed, but he had an idea that it wouldn't be a good reaction, especially if Jesse would have died before that happened. Just the idea made him clench his jaw and hands.

The brother on the holo had kept himself remarkably together, 'specially for someone whose name was 'Nerves'. He kept an eye on the kid, who was now telling his trooper about how he'd come to be hanging around the 501st, but also another on Rea'Vil, who had been unmovable by her absolute certainty that she was dealing just fine with her own traumas and needed no Mind Healer, thank you very much but no.

Kix had looked ready to lose it right there in her face, so Hevy had grabbed their CMO and dragged him off before he could say something he could regret at a volume he would certainly regret.

"Stop looking at me like I might be going in pieces at any second." Rea'Vil asked, still keeping her voice low, looking at him with a patient expression and leaning in to press her shoulder against his. 

Hardcase grumbled a few choice words of mando'a at her and then pressed his shoulder back against her, raising his arm and tugging her closer, if a bit awkwardly.

"Go see a mind healer." He countered, gruffly.

He got an elbow to the ribs in an answer before she, tentatively, slid her arm around his back. He squeezed her closed and resolved to keep bringing it up until she caved.

* * *

"Alright." Cutup surveyed the three padawans sternly. "Have all the charges been placed?"

"Yes sir." They chorused, looking giddy with expectation.

"And no one placed charges on someone else's fountain?" He added, pretending to be sternly overseeing a very tiny squad's work.

"No sir." They denied, glancing at each other and then nodded decisively.

"And when we are caught here, what will you three say?" He asked again.

"That you found us sneaking about and talking about our Masters." Kaulth Meth replied promptly, voice ringing with truth.

"You were about to take us back to our assigned room." Mell Vesh added, all wide-eyed innocence that, Cutup was impressed, worked pretty damn impressively.

"And then it all exploded in color." Masran finished, spreading his arm large to show how much.

"Which is all very true, because I am about to take you all back to your assigned rooms." Cutup agreed, smiling down at them, proud of their accomplishment in the field of light hearted mischief that would hurt no one.

"Ready?" He asked, raising his ignition switch and waggling it at them.

"Ready!" They chorused again, raising their own ignition switches.

"Let's go you rapscallions!" Cutup declared, loud enough to be overheard by anyone who might have happened to be nearby and giving the three kids a very serious look. "Time to get to bed, all three of you."

The kids pressed their ignitions buttons at the same time as him.

The dye packages they had set ruptured in unison and the waters of the Room of a Thousand Fountains turned into a veritable rainbow of colors.

* * *

Obi-Wan was pretty certain he was dreaming.

He was sitting at a table with Qui-Gon, which was as good an indicator as he could get. They were into a dingy, old cantina that could have been just about everywhere in the Outer Rim.

Somehow his Master had still gotten his hands on Aldeeranian press, which was another pretty good indication that he was in a dream. Obi-Wan's mug of fine Corellian brandy was what sealed the idea.

He hadn't touched even half a glass of Corellian brandy since before the beginning of the war.

"You deserve a drink, after all you've been through." Qui-Gon offered, when Obi-Wan didn't touch his mug.

It made him laugh, to think of his mind deciding that Qui-Gon would enable him to drink, especially with something as trite as that. He shook his head and took up his mug, raising it.

"To the end of the war." He toasted and drank.

"You should pace yourself." Qui-Gon offered, sipping from his mug of Aldeeranian press. "You don't want to end up singing." He pointed out at Obi-Wan's amused glance.

"And why wouldn't I?" Obi-Wan countered, feeling as mischievous as he had sometimes wished he could be, as padawan. "This is a dream. I can do whatever I want."

"If so you think." Qui-Gon dipped his head the slightest bit, with a fond amused expression that Obi-Wan wasn't that familiar with. He had a feeling that Qui-Gon was laughing at him, but he couldn't imagine why.

He took another long swig of his brandy and rested the calf of his right boot on his left knee, leaning back in his chair and tapping out a rhythm on the side of it, along with the rhythm the band he was starting on.

He knew the song and he actually felt pleasantly buzzed enough to start singing soon, in the warm cantina with his Master looking at him with warmth in his eyes and a good rhythm of a classic smuggler's song building up.

He toasted to Qui-Gon, who toasted back at him as Obi-Wan hummed along to the music.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My huge thanks to the wonderful meabhair who looked this over and pointed out all the typos therein to me to correct! 
> 
> She's a life-saver to my brain and to your reading.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In a dream cantina...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is short, compared to the previous ones, and it starts funny and then gets all feels and it ends with angst and catharsis, so that's my forewarning to you.
> 
> I am sorry it took this long and it's still so short but this wasn't going to happen any other way and the rest of the story wasn't gonna move on until this happened, so here we are.
> 
> I gave in and carved my heart out a bit for this.
> 
> I hope you can all forgive me.
> 
> On the upside the catharsis will end up being a good thing and from here on things will look up for Obi-Wan.
> 
> Unbetaed.

Obi-Wan stretched out his legs and smiled at Qui-Gon as The Rodian And The Ghest started playing out.

"I must admit, I am not familiar with this one." Qui-Gon said, with a puzzled frown as he turned to look at the band of Bith.

"You wouldn't be." Obi-Wan countered, fondly thinking back to the face Blast had made when he had found out why First and Sod Off had been badgering him for rhyming words. He hadn't been able to find out exactly _how_ Blast had paid his squadmates back, but Cody had confirmed for him that _something_ had indeed happened.

"Two of my men came up with it for a drinking song contest held within the 212th." He explained, focusing for a moment to drag up the proper order of the lyrics.

"Would you care to enlighten me?" Qui-Gon asked, looking back at him with a mischievous kind of honest curiosity.

Obi-Wan _smiled_ , feeling quite smug at knowing that Qui-Gon had gone looking for the filthy fate that was about to befell his ears.

"Ah." Qui-Gon said, quietly, looking like he was already regretting his words. "Obi-Wan." He started, but said former padawan didn't leave him the time to backtrack any further.

"This is the tale of the Rodian and the Ghest!" He intoned, with a theatrical sweep of his arm, and Qui-Gon groaned as Obi-Wan did so.

The sound of his groan was almost completely drowned out by the cheers of a table of 212th Troopers that had appeared at their left while Obi-Wan was distracted. He blinked at them and then smiled, with a fondness that was only slightly marred by his regrets.

Shock and Awe were there, as inseparable and physically close now as they had been in life, with Volts propping himself up on Lock's shoulders to make up for the few inches he lacked on the rest of his brothers, Poke thumping his mug on the table in time with Obi-Wan's words.

When he tore his eyes off them, because he had seen more 212th gold in the corner of his eye, Obi-Wan found himself surrounded by the mass of troopers that had apparently decided to flood the cantina with their presence, filling the air with the rumbling sound of their boots stomping in time with the music.

He smiled back at the beaming smiles and cheers that welcomed him at every table he looked at, and he found that he couldn't say if the tears that wanted to pool at the corners of his eyes as he started to sing for them were grief or joy, at seeing them all again, hearthy and ale.

"Out on a boat, in the swamp the Rodian went." He sung, a hundred and more voices picking up his words and making the cantina boom with it. "To get away from the landed who wanted rent. He had no idea he was about to get bent. By the big Ghest that on his way Fate had sent."

Qui-Gon choked on his own shocked laughter, turning to look at Obi-Wan with a bewildered gaze, as if seeing him for the very first time. Obi-Wan smirked at him and then point at Storm, whom he'd seen sitting by the band, still wearing his Phase One shiny armor. He'd been the first casualty of the Clone Wars, in the 212th, the first light Obi-Wan had felt go out while he'd been out in the field with them. 

It felt fitting, somewhat, that he'd be the one to chorus the first refrain with him.

"This is the tale of the Rodian and the Ghest, that in the swamp met!" Storm's sang out, horribly so, his Twileki accent clashing and meshing with Obi-Wan's own Coruscanti one.

"From under the boat the Ghest came. She thought the Rodian wanted to play a certain kind of game." The whole cantina half-sung and half-yelled out. "The Rodian squeaked when he saw her, but for not noticing her he only had himself to blame. To be honest, if he'd known he would have come all the same."

CC-2333, who'd never gotten to the point of finding a name that suited him but had been called Rules behind his back by his men, looked quietly horrified by the mess they were making and proved troopers could indeed blush when Obi-Wan singled him out to join him and Storm.

"This is the tale of the Rodian and the Ghest, that in the swamp met and each other got really wet!" They sang, admist a gale of whistles and catcalls, as Qui-Gon pressed a hand to his eyes and seemed to try and pretend he was neither here nor in Obi-Wan's company, despite sitting at the same table as the other Jedi.

"For the Ghest's had a big, large tail shaped like a cock. And the Rodian had yet to meet the one who could hit his spot. " Obi-Wan crooned and heard a shocked and a quite startled "Padawan!" come from his left. He laughed and raised an arm, as if to direct his troopers, the way a conductor would at the Aldeeranian opera. "He squeaked and flailed and then jumped on the Ghest's top. Let her take him away to a place with algae so soft."

He didn't get to choose the men for the next bit of refrain himself, because Motherlode jumped up on top of the table his squad had settled at, probably at Rock's encouragement, and belted it out along with his two brothers and his General.

"This is the tale of the Rodian and the Ghest, that in the swamp met and each other got really wet, much more than anyone would have bet!" Obi-Wan crowed as he scrambled to his feet himself, to see just how far the dream cantina had expanded. 

As far as his eyes could see, tables of troopers had appeared, until he wouldn't have been able to say where the cantina began or ended. It felt as if every men he had ever lost was there, the sound of their singing defeaning in his mind as well as in the Force as they all resonated together, with him as their epicenter.

It was as glorious as it was heartbreaking.

"It was messy, long and oh so deeply good. By the end of it, there was no way the Rodian could have stood." They sang and mugs were raised at him and so many boots were stomping that it felt like an earthquake was incoming and the whole air sang with their satisfaction and the crystal clear joy of being here, now, with him. 

Obi-Wan let it wash all over him and spread his arms wide, his mug of Corellian brandy now suddendly in his hand somehow, as they finished the fourth verse. "And in all his life he'd never been in such a good mood. So much that he decided the Ghest had only ever been misunderstood."

His troopers thumped their fists on the tables and Obi-Wan didn't waste any in time in picking out Roast from the crowd, scarred by the explosion he had thrown himself into as his last living act, dying to protect him, his General.

He hastened forward to clasp the man's arm in the Mandalorian fashion, letting himself being drawn into a hug that he answered, his mug probably clattering to the floor as he let it go to enfold the man in his arms and squeeze him tight. Roast had been one of the more physically expressive brothers Obi-Wan had ever met.

"This is the tale of the Rodian and the Ghest, that in the swamp met and each other got really wet, much more than anyone would have bet, ending up in a nice love net!" They crowed together and then he was surrounded in a crowd of smiling troopers, who all wanted to touch him, shake his hand, draw him into hasty hugs that didn't last long at all, Roast a firm presence at his back.

The cantina around him seemed to almost shake, as they all launched in the next refrain. "He petted the beast and saw how satisfied she seemed, and to each other they both happily beamed!" Somewhere, he could hear Qui-Gon laughter, something he hadn't heard much of even before his Master had died. "The Rodian's day had turned out better than he could have dreamed, and in his eyes the Ghest had become fully redeemed!"

There was another refrain, then the last verse and the final refrain and Obi-Wan sang them with his men, but it felt like a blur, the faces around him changing again and again as everyone came forward and wanted to have a word with him, thank him for things he never should have been thanked for, treated like a hero when he really wasn't.

He'd led this men to their deaths, failed them all, and yet here they all were, spoiling for his attention, wanting him to know how they thought he was the best thing that could have ever happened to them. Obi-Wan felt his breath coming short, the crowd suddenly too much and too close all at once.

His world swam.

A familiar, freckled hand clamped down on his arm, steadying him and tugging him away, as a rough, scratchy voice yelled things that he couldn't get his brain to decipher in that moment and pushed him down, in a chair.

His Master's hand, familiar and oh so missed, settled on his left shoulder as Qui-Gon leaned down, looking at him. His Master's fingers curled around his face, steadying it, and the touch was so familiar that Obi-Wan found himself sitting in the Theed's palace, staring at the pit where the two pieces of Maul had fallen, only his Master left standing by his side.

"I can't." He said and tried to put into the words all the things he couldn't do, all the things he couldn't fake to be, not right now. A good Jedi, a good Master to his padawan, a good General, a good Councilor, a good friend. He wasn't even sure how good of a man he was, because he hadn't tried harder to work more paperwork in to get his men the respect and freedom they deserved.

A journalist had discovered the Sith Lord, the one who had been behind it all along, and Obi-Wan had let the man alone with his padawan, had failed _Anakin_ so badly, so deeply that he barely could conceive how Anakin could stand to be in the same room as him.

Yoda and a strike team he'd not been a part of had brought Darth Sidious' life to an end, put the final word on the existence of the Sith when they had hunted down every single clone facility the man had ever been involved in, legally or not.

Mace and Quinlan and the others were the ones out there, hunting down the last dregs of the Separatists and keeping Count Dooku in custody, helping the Corps go to the worlds in need that had asked for their intervention. To patch up what Obi-Wan had destroyed as he carved his own war-monger's path through the galaxy.

He had managed to rid the galaxy of Grievous but that was all his war efforts amounted at. Millions of dead men and thousands upon thousands civilian victims, that was the legacy that he was going to leave behind himself.

And he couldn't, he just couldn't, brave a battlefield again and waste the lives of those who followed him, with quips on his lips and the serene face that everyone expected him to have. The lives of men who were _barely_ out of their teenage years, in the most recent batches _still_ teenagers.

Not without breaking and splintering further and he didn't know how much of himself he had left to crack and give up.

"I can't." He repeated and then curled in on himself as he bursted out into tears.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HAPPY BIRTHDAY @demifishblog
> 
> I am so proud this managed to get out on time and it's longer than the last one too, with some stuff about Obi-Wan and some stuff about the Temple too.
> 
> Unbetaed, all errors are mine and I hope you all enjoy this!
> 
> Thanks for sticking with me :D

[981st year of the Coruscant Standard Calendar - 26th day of the 10th month - uncertain hour - within a dream]

Qui-Gon kept his hand on Obi-Wan's shoulder and let him unburden himself through the ragged, painful sobs that racked his whole being, the Force singing in mourning around them as the young man, and oh Obi-Wan was so young still and with so much ahead of him to live for, grieved for all of his self-constructed failings and all the lives he thought they had cost.

He felt helpless, in front of the onslaught of feelings that radiated from his former padawan, and he wished for words who would comfort him and help him accept that the world wasn't shaped the way Obi-Wan saw it, but in a much more forgiving way.

It was, he knew, his fault in big part.

That he hadn't meant to engender this kind of mentality in his padawan didn't mean that he hadn't done it all the same. He had taught him not the way he should have, but with a hobbling method that was part his own Master's, part Yoda's and part whatever Qui-Gon had rebelled against and thought to shape.

Even that, though, had come later in their relationship and not in the very beginning, when he had carved in his padawan impressions of himself and of what he expected of him that had taken deep root in the young light that he had been given the honor to help forge.

He'd only learned how much after his own death, when he had learned the true path of the Masters of old and faced his past life and self to forge himself into a new one. He had seen his own actions and wished for them to stop. Tried to hit himself more than once, if only so to draw a reaction that wasn't solemn, hypocritical judgement and deep, condemning silence.

TIme and time again he had flinched, as he watched himself impart lessons he would have never given had he not been deep into the pits of his own depression and grief, most of his caring capacity smothered under the ashes of what he had never dealt with before. What he had let out had been for others he wouldn't be close to, in the long run, and had only rarely been given to his own padawan, who most all had needed a nurturing hand.

The Journey of the Whills had led him to realize, among many other teachings, just how much of his lessons he had given to Obi-Wan in ways that were far too easily misinterpreted, through no fault of his padawan, and how many of his behaviour's the boy Obi-Wan had been had thought to be teachings, examples he had to model himself after.

And yet Obi-Wan had flourished where Qui-Gon himself had wilted and cobbled together the scraps he had received into something that had turned him into a strong, brave man who walked the hardest road and never flinched from it, no matter what he thought or felt inside. He had become the shining beacon the Order had gathered to, whether they realized it or not, far more inspiring than even the likes of Yoda.

Oh, but he was _glad_ that it had been Obi-Wan who had taught Anakin and that he hadn't lived to be undoing of the young boy he had only ever seen as the Chosen One, for the short time they had known each other. 

It had been his padawan, for all that he had initially mocked the boy's existance and doubted him, who had seen the boy and not the vessel, who had found it in himself a faith in Anakin that no other being in the galaxy had ever even come close to match, more than Qui-Gon himself had ever had.

Yet Obi-Wan didn't seem able to see himself with the same lenses he examined most others through.

What he would have recognized as selfless deeds and brave sacrifices to someone else, he saw as nothing but his daily life and duty. Where he would have praised any other Jedi working the seeming miracles he pulled off regularly. Admiration and respect both would have grown in him for any Master with the poise and the apparently effortless grace and strength he performed them with, but he had little to none for his own self.

It was as if was blind to the shining light within his own self, puzzled by the way those around him reacted to it, and though Qui-Gon couldn't claim all of the blame for himself, he knew he'd been a great part of what had led Obi-Wan to see himself thus.

He acknowledged it and accepted it. Then, unlike he would have once done, he let it all go and turned all of his attention to the young man shivering under his palm.

He slid his hand down on Obi-Wan's back and then to the side and upward, so to drape his arm around his padawan's shoulders, drawing him closer and wrapping him in his own presence and into the Force, thankful that the dream allowed him a physical presence he wouldn't have otherwise had.

Obi-Wan pressed his side against his but didn't otherwise move closer or even acknowledged his hold, his body tensing minutely for a handful of long seconds, before he slumped a bit. Qui-Gon suppressed a wince, at the realization that receiving comfort was so foreign to Obi-Wan that he couldn't help but react with tension and suspicion, before he allowed himself to have it bestowed upon him, but not to lean onto it.

They had failed him in so many ways.

"It is you that you are doing a wrong to, Obi-Wan, to think so little of yourself." He said, voicing part of his thoughts. 

He kept still, not wanting to risk forcing the man into more contact that he was comfortable with nor sending him into a retreat, as he had seen Master Kenobi do again and again, elevating metaphorical shields as well as mind ones when he thought himself as too emotional for the Jedi he believed himself to be pretending to be.

Obi-Wan laughed, a sad and tired sound that felt like it was hurting him.

"I knew already that this was only a dream, but I hadn't thought my mind would imagine you, of all people, excusing my failures." He said, turning his head up to look at Qui-Gon with old, worn out eyes and bitter smile on his lips.

"And what failures do you believe there to be, my former padawan?" He replied, raising an eyebrow at the other man and refusing to take the bait lying there for him.

"You are a product of my mind, shouldn't you know them already and have more that I have yet failed to realize?" Obi-Wan replied, drawing away now but without shutting himself off.

Qui-Gon let him go, though he mourned for Obi-Wan's refusal of the comfort that had been freely given to him. It seemed that Obi-Wan was even more deeply unable to conceive himself as needing it than Qui-Gon had originally believed. It was a troubling thought.

"Humor me." He replied, once again stepping around the accusation and the out that it represented, choosing to insist on making him speak his mind out loud, instead of leaving him grasping at straws.

The palace of Theed vanished like smoke around them, leaving Qui-Gon sitting on a cushion in the Room of a Thousand Fountains, watching his padawan starting to pace, the way he never allowed himself to do when awake. It had taken time, for Qui-Gon to discern it, but whenever Obi-Wan felt that impulse, there would be a change in the way he kept himself standing. A different quality to his stillness.

He was relieved that, at least in his dreams, Obi-Wan allowed himself some measure of freedom.

"Anakin." Obi-Wan said. "It was your dying wish that I would train him."

"And so you did." Qui-Gon agreed, easily. 

He knew Obi-Wan at least well enough to know that he wasn't going to be able to hold his tongue, especially when confronted with the kind of willfull and deliberate refusal to get the point that Qui-Gon had often turned on him in life. He disliked having to act thus, but he needed Obi-Wan to talk, not to enter a question on continued existance after death and Force Ghosts. That would have to wait for when his padawan wasn't so lost anymore.

"While also letting him fall under the sway of a Sith Lord, sending him to be alone with the man with a pretend blessing and distaste curling on the tip of my tongue, because I thought the man to be a politician." Obi-Wan specified.

"He was one." Qui-Gon pointed out. "You had reason to dislike him as such but no reason at all to suspect that he was a Sith in disguise. Especially a disguise so powerful that could fool the whole of the High Council, Yoda included, and all of the Temple's Shadows."

"It is not their padawans that he corrupted." Obi-Wan countered, without even waiting a beat, the answer already on his lips. "It is not them who turned a blind eye as the man did his best, and his best was no little thing, to corrupt their padawans and turn them against their Masters, against the Order and all that it stood for."

"The Chancellor asked _Mace_ , not you, to allow him to spend time with _your_ padawan and he allowed it. Do you fault him for it?" Qui-Gon asked.

"Of course not! The High Council had no choice but to bend to the men's whims! We are but servants of the Republic and he was our Supreme Chancellor at the time." Obi-Wan immediately replied, incensed at the very thought.

"Then why would you fault yourself for doing the same?" Qui-Gon pressed, not wanting his former padawan to get a second wind and wriggle out of the line of thinking he was steering him towards.

"Because Mace wasn't Anakin's Master!" Obi-Wan snapped, in such a fashion as he hadn't since he'd been very young and still energetic enough to loudly contrast him, instead of quietly doing it in private.

"Did being Anakin's Master bring you any special insight that Mace, for all that he can see Shatterpoints, couldn't divine?" Qui-Gon wondered, looking up at Obi-Wan and raising his eyebrow again.

"No, but --" Obi-Wan stopped himself, for he had long since learned that to follow anything with a 'but' negated what had come before and turned it into the lesser thing, the lesser truth.

Qui-Gon left him the time Obi-Wan needed.

"No, it didn't." His former padawan finally said, frowning as he sat himself down in front of Qui-Gon, brows drawing closer as he considered the argument from angles he might have not, had he been awake and, as he had always been forced to be, possessed of only the briefest of times to reflect on things.

"Perhaps, then, you should meditate on that." Qui-Gon suggested, gently, and watched as Obi-Wan re-arraged his position in the basic Thytonian Lotus position, looking cross as he closed his eyes and started carefully building his shields up, leaving only an entrance for Qui-Gon to come through, if so he desidered.

Qui-Gon did.

He closed his own eyes and stepped onto the path Obi-Wan had left open for him.

* * *

[981st year of the Coruscant Standard Calendar - 26th day of the 10th month - 09:57 PM - Corridor outside the crechè]

"We're almost there." Rea'Vil said, quietly, giving a nod to the two clones who were following her.

It almost felt like being on patrol again, Rappel and Scoff walking in time with her step, two steps behind, half positioned to be between her back and any incoming shot and half positioned to have a clear line of sight that run just two inches off the side of each arm.

Sharis was a light weight in her arms, out like a light again. He hadn't lasted long, once his conversation with Nerves had ended, and as the only one who knew where his rooms in the creche were.

Hardcase and the one who'd introduced himself as Jesse, and still looked very disturbed by the idea that Master Kenobi might not have ended up being a Jedi because of the cut-off age for Initiates, had offered to accompany her.

There wasn't any talking going on, but there didn't need to be. 

There just was _something_ to be walking somewhere, with a clear purpose in mind, and the quiet sound of boots moving in unison that made a knot in ther shoulders come unwound and tears pool at the corners of her eyes. 

It was familiar in all the best ways, reassuring and soothing because she knew that cadence and it meant safety and trust and we-care and we-will-get-out-of-this-in-one-piece (and oh, the lie ripped at her heart but even that was a good pain, because the men at her back, they had truly come out of it in one piece even if her brothers and Rappel hadn't), and at the same time not, as she and the 22nd had never been planet-side on Coruscant.

She could understand why Trant never went anywhere without One Eye at his back, looking out for him.

After a moment's deliberation, she decided to take the panoramic way and draw the feeling out for a few more minutes. She wasn't ready to let the illusion go yet.

* * *

[981st year of the Coruscant Standard Calendar - 26th day of the 10th month - 10:05 PM - Corridor outisde of the Healing Wings of the Jedi Temple on Coruscant]

Rex gave one last glare to the healing wing's entrance, and the retreating back of Healer Saila, and then turned back to Medic Keran.

They had all been tossed out, in a very polite fashion and under the pretense of being 'escorted out as visitor's hours have ended', without much ceremony before they could finish talking to the woman.

Only Cody had been allowed to stay, as Obi-Wan's commander and self-appointed guard. The way they had all been dismissed had left him bristling, especially coming on the heels of what Medic Keran had said about the inner workings of the Order.

"What is the actual pecking order, here?" He asked her. 

He would have been the first to admit that his request was blunt, but he had quite enough bad surprises in the last day to last him the rest of his lifetime and he had a feeling that the true problems were yet to come.

"I am not having this discussion here." She replied. "I have a house to get to, possibly before my husband calls in and thinks I've missed his call because I've let myself get sidetracked at work again."

Rex blinked, then frowned at her. He saw General Skywalker freeze in the corner of his eyes and then turn to Medic Keran with an incredulous expression. Tano just looked uncomfortable at her Master's reaction. He wondered briefly what was going on there, but then let it go. It could wait.

"I thought Jedi couldn't be married." He pointed out. "You are a Jedi, aren't you?"

"I am part of the Corps. As we are not Knights, the Code doesn't bind ourself as tightly and we do not have to worry about the Rule of Attachment." She specified, again implying a great deal of difference just by the pronunciation of the word. "The Jedi _Knights_ and, by consequence, the Jedi _Masters_ are the ones who are _strongly discouraged_ from marrying, unless they can master and get past the problem of _attachment_. Though some teaching lines hold with the Jedi can't-be-married belief."

General Skywalker looked frozen on the spot, in a way that made Rex turn to him, worry pooling in his gut as he took in the tell-tale signs of shock. Tano hadn't even noticed, looking at Medic Keran in askance, as if she'd been caught blaspheming something.

"Aw, kasharkat-skashe." Medic Keran said, the second word sound very much like a swear word, though it wasn't one Rex could understand. "You are of Grand Master Yoda's teaching line. Look, maybe you should sit down --"

"No!" The General snapped, suddenly coming back to himself and darting foward, grabbing Medic Keran's shoulders and looking at her with a slightly crazed expression that made Rex reflexively want to duck a little. Good things never came from that expression.

"Master!" Tano gasped. She would have reached out to touch him and try to draw him back, but Rex shook his head at her, emphatically enough that she noticed and stepped back, confused and unsure but, luckily for all of them, trusting his judgement on this call.

"Jedi Knights can be married?" He asked, his voice coming out hoarse, something in his eyes that told Rex that he and Cody had greatly failed to underestimate just how far the General and Senator Amidala had already gone in their poorly hidden relationship. 

Kriff, no wonder he was losing his mind over her being pregnant.

"If they can get over the problem of attachment." Medic Keran nodded, her expression guarded and her words more careful than they had been before. "Initiates of course can't, as they are children, and padawan can't, because they are mostly underage and still in training. It's only after a padawan has been Knighted for more than two years that they can get married, if they wish to, though it's always highly encouraged to discuss any potential romantic relationship with one's Master or former Master, before it's undertaken, to discuss the potential of attachment and how to handle it."

For a beat, the General was perfectly still, just looking at Medic Keran as if she'd just told him where to find all of the Seppie's high brass tied together with a nice bow on top. The next moment, moving faster than Rex could have tracked, he'd drawn her into what looked like a bone crushing hug, squeezing her tight enough that the woman made protesting sounds.

"Knights can get married." He said, voice rough, letting her go immediately, looking sheepish and apologetic when she glared at him. He even went as far as muttering something that sounded like an apology. Rex was impressed, despite himself.

"Master? What's going on?" Tano asked, looking uncertain.

Medic Keran gave the padawan a look of such flatness that Rex felt like he might have found someone to ask for some pointers on how to perfect his own.

"Whatever it is." She said waving a hand, clearly having enough of a good idea about whatever it is that Rex had to wonder just how many people had figured out his General's interest in Senator Amidala. "It will have to wait until dinner."

"We can escort to the mess hall --" The General started to say and then frowned, seeing the way commander Tano tensed, looking uncomfortable. "What is, Snips?"

Medic Keran sighed, heavily, looking a bit fed up. "If he wasn't Kenobi, I would have words with your Master about the amount of time you clearly didn't spend in the creche or studying the rules of the Order." She muttered.

"What does that mean?" Rex asked, his words coming out harsher than he would haved made them sound if he'd thought about it before opening his mouth, but also just as harsh as he had actually meant them to be.

"It means that a Corps medic has no leeway to go tell High Councillor Obi-Wan Sith-Killer The Negotiator Kenobi that he did something wrong, no matter if he did or not." She replied, looking unfazed by his words. "With Jedi District Knights or Masters, depending on how many people who know both of us can vouch for me, I might, but Kenobi? Might as well try and get myself a Master."

She raised a hand to shut them up, before they could ask more questions. "I am not detached to the Temple, technically, only to the MedCenter that shares a lift with the Temple, so I do not get to eat in the mess hall of the Jedi Temple." She explained to the General.

"If I eat in a mess hall, it's the one of the Corps District, though I wouldn't recommend to go there. It's six hours from here on the fastest speedsters the Temple has to offer. My apartment, however, is only an hour and a half by transport and since you are all clearly not going to let up until I answer your questions, I might as well invite you over."

She turned and looked at Rex in a way that had something that was distinctly _healer_ and _displeased-Kix_ and uncomfortably savvy in a way that made him straighten his back. " _You_ haven't eaten in at least a day or so, and don't try to tell me differently." She commented.

It was actually close to two days, but who was Rex to countermand such an order? He didn't tell her differently, giving a little shrug when General Skywalker turned a disapproving look on him. He had had other things in mind.

"You have some explaining to do, Snips." The General muttered, as they got underway, stepping closer to commander Tano.

"How is the fact that you don't know how the Corps works my fault, Master?" She countered, in an undervoice.

Rex fell in step behind them, letting the sound of their bickering wash over him, as he checked his comm system. The sight of the additional holocomm wrapped around his wrist reassured him that he could go.

He was only a call away, should Cody need to notify him of anything regarding their fool of a Jedi's condition, and perfectly reachable for anything 501st related.

* * *

[981st year of the Coruscant Standard Calendar - 26th day of the 10th month - 10:15 PM - Crechè]

Hardcase watched, as Rea'Vil tucked Sharis in the middle of the pile of youngling that was keeping Boil pinned down, with Waxer's help. 

The way Boil had taken one look at the boy and started shuffling other sleepy kids told him that Nerves wasn't going to have to worry anymore about his Jedi putting on proper winter coats and taking good care of himself.

He smirked at his 212th brother, when Boil looked at him like he was promising payback. As if they didn't know already that Boil was a sucker for, metaphorically, kids and Waxer, metaphorically _and_ literally. He could look as pissy as he wanted, Hardcase knew he was soft as fresh mud inside.

Boil glowered harder.

Hardcase deliberately smirked wider and threw him a cheeky salute.

He moved to the side before Boil's attempts to set him on fire with his eyes achieved any kind of success, joining Rea'Vil and Waxer, who have moved to a side to talk in quiet voices.

"-- found out that sweet things help him relax and make him sleepy, so they like for him to have some warm milk and one or two sweets at hand in case he wakes up at night." Rea'Vil was murmuring. "He never makes any sounds when he wakes up and his shields are really tight, so he's not going to leak his nightmares out ot the other kids, but it's better if someone is there to cuddle him. Just don't wrap your arm around his waist, that _really_ freaks him out."

Ah.

Care and feeding of your Jedi 101.

Waxer was lucky he was getting a youngling with a pre-fab manual coming along with it, instead of having to figure it all out himself, like Nerves and his brother's had. He wished the 22nd brothers were still around, to take him into their confidence and help him understand his own Jedi.

Not that it mattered. Not in the long run. He _was_ going to take care of her and he _was_ going to find out and put together his own Care and Feeding of Rea'Vil 101 manual.

He positioned himself behind her, at her left, taking guard position, and waited for her to be done so that he could start working on convincing her to show him her own living accomodations so that he could see if she had decent ones and where they were. 

He was sure she had a good, comfortable for sleeping as the ones they had been assigned were luxurious and he couldn't imagine the Jedi living worse off than their troops, but he still wanted to get a feel of the place and he needed to build a better mental map of the Temple in his head, one where he could easily pin point her haunts.

He was damn well going to make sure she was never left alone again, like she'd been when she'd first found him in the training rooms and stepped forward, to take care of him like no brother was taking care of her. Well, those days in her life where over and done with.

She was _his_ Jedi now.

* * *

[981st year of the Coruscant Standard Calendar - 26th day of the 10th month - 10:23 PM - Airways of Coruscant]

"So, the pecking order." Medic Keran sighed, from the back seat.

Skyguy had balked at the idea of taking a public transport, so they had requisitioned one of the Temple speedcars from the main hangar and had headed down to the middle levels of Coruscant, once Medic Keran had given him her level and address.

Ahsoka had taken the front seat, next to her Master, leaving Rex to take the other seat in the back. He didn't seem to mind and that made her feel relieved. She had never been around a member of the Corps for so long and Medic Keran made her feel uncomfortable, what with her behaving as no Corps member should have, in front of _actual_ Jedi.

It was also kind of embarassing, how little Skyguy had managed to learn from Master Kenobi, in terms of how the Order worked. He was making blunders no Intiate would have ever thought possible, one right after the other, and he seemed to not understand the difference between them and the Corps.

Maybe part the reason why the Order didn't usually accept older kids was this, the dififculty to integrate in the ways of the Order. 

Not that she wasn't happy Skyguy had gotten in. She was and he was the best Master she could have ever asked for. He was different from how she had thought any Master could have been and even a better Master for her than Master Plo might have been. She and Skyguy _got_ each other. It was just ... sometimes you could really see he hadn't come in the normal way.

"On the bottom you have Agricultural, shortened to Agri, Educational, shortened to Edu, Medical, shortened to Med and Technology, shortened to Tech or Mech depending on who you ask." Medic Keran summed up. "The Agricorps are bigger than the rest put together, but we are more or less in the same boat when it comes to the Jedi Order's chain of command. We have our own internal hyerarchies, which are influence by the job you do and your level of experience, but they don't matter much to outsiders."

Which of course made sense. Ahsoka was starting to regret coming along. _She_ knew these things already, she'd learned them in class and in the creche. She had no need of remedial lessons. She turned her head to the side, watching the traffic go by.

Skyguy nudged her, making her almost jump. She turned her head to frown at him and was met with his serious 'pay attention, Snips' expression. She rolled her eyes at him. He scowled a bit. Ahsoka sighed and resigned herself to hear about the Corps all over again.

"The Explo Corps are their own mixed bag. They should technically be on part with the other four bottom Corps, as far as Corps go, but they are mostly made up of Knights and Master who retired or are taking a sabbatical, so that means that they stand somewhat above us while also being the same as us at the same time." Medic Keran was telling Rex. "Calling shots wise, the Knights and Masters get precedence unless it's an emergency where a more specialized skillset is required, at which point we take precedence."

"When someone is injured, you are the highest authority, as CMO." Rex commented, sounding like he was repeating something he had been told.

"Not a CMO but yes, it does work that way." Medic Keran agreed, sounding entertained. Ahsoka turned her head a bit and saw that her face had softened somewhat in an amused smile, that looked much better than the scowls she had shown them so far. Not that it was going to last, she predicted to herself, darkly, turning her head back forward.

Skyguy gave her look and Ahsoka mouthed 'what? I _am_ listening'. It seemed to satisfy him, because he turned back to the traffic, slowing down for a red light.

"Above all five of us, you have the Admin and Logistic Corps, shortened to A&L. They are the real backbone of the Order." Medic Keran explained.

Ahsoka blinked and then turned to stare at the woman, shocked. "That's not true!" She countered, without even thinking about it. Skyguy may have missed all of the lessons about the Corps, but she hadn't and she knew perfectly well that -"Knights are the backbone of the Order. The A&L Corps are just the paper pushers."

The look Medic Keran gave her made Ahsoka want to shrink down in her seat. That made her even angrier than she'd already been, especially when Rex turned a baffled look on her, like somehow it was her who was being unreasonable here.

"Ahsoka." Skyguy groaned and she turned to him.

"What? You know it's true! You think paperwork is useless too, Master." She reminded him, because she'd hear him say it a fair number of times. "You think we should just report to the Council and have it done with, not spend time slaving down on padds!"

"Oh, is that how it is?" Medic Keran drawled, sounding amused in a very unamused way. Something in her tone made a shiver run down Ahsoka's back.

She had a really bad feeling about this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If TCW taught me anything is that it's not a Star Wars thing unless someone goes 'I have a bad feeling about this'.
> 
> Now someone did.
> 
> Also, I kind of struggled with Ahsoka's POV. I love her and I really wanted to give her character and her physical way of moving and reacting a proper treatment, but I was also weighting that with her being Temple-raised and a young teenager so there are things she takes for granted or things she doesn't have been explained yet and ingrained behaviours and points of view that characterize her.
> 
> (Kind of like all the canon eye-rolling she did to that old Master when her lightsaber was stolen).
> 
> I hope I pulled that off and thank you all for reading!


End file.
